Store Bededag - Great Prayer Day in Copenhagen

/

Tomorrow is the fourth Friday after Easter so that means it is Store Bededag or Great Prayer Day in Denmark.

Great Prayer Day fascinates me because it seems to show just how practical Danes are and even when it comes down to organising religious festivals.

By the late 17th century it seems that there was a problem because people were marking different saint days and choosing different saints to celebrate. Not quite a day off work for someone somewhere but in 1686, Christian V rolled together all the days for celebrating minor saints through the Spring into one day off and decreed that, thenceforth, there would be just a single holiday .... Great Prayer Day.

Then, last year, the Danish government down graded it as a public holiday so tomorrow, for the first year since 1686, Danes will not take the day off from work or, rather, not take the day off and still be paid.

The reason? The state has to pay for increased expenditure on defence and, apparently, everyone working through what should otherwise have been a public holiday helps.

With many events through the year in Denmark, there are distinct foods linked to specific celebrations …. fastelavnsboller for Lent or goose for Mortenaften - the feast of Saint Martin in November - or the special beer on the first Friday in November for julebrygsdag or Christmas Brew Day. For Great Prayer Day it's Hveder .... wheat buns flavoured with cardamom.

The logic is impeccable. Because it was a religious festival, bakers could not work on the Friday, so they baked these yeast buns on Thursday so citizens had bread for the holiday.

The buns are light and are baked in trays and dough, formed into small balls, is set out in the tray in lines with regular spaces between. As they rise, they come up against the adjoining dough to form almost-square buns with a domed top. Edges, where they touch the next bun, remain soft while the tops brown in the oven.

Inevitably, these soft, light, rolls, with a delicate hint of cardamom, rarely last until Friday. The normal way is to eat them warm, pulled apart and spread with butter.

By tradition, church bells are rung on Thursday evening to mark the start of the religious holiday on Friday and, in Copenhagen, there is a centuries-old habit for citizens, on Thursday evening, to walk the ramparts - the high banks of the city defences - or families walk around the rampart of Katellet - the fortress at the north end of the inner city - with views from there across the city and across the harbour and the sound.

When I was at school, we had to write reviews or criticisms of books and music and works of art and the one word that was always scrubbed out with red ink, when these efforts were marked, was the word nice. I remembered that this afternoon when I walked across to buy wheat buns and I realised just how "nice" these Danish traditions are. Maybe I'm just getting old in a bad World but these days I'm really happy when anything is nice.

Hveder - wheat buns bought this afternoon from the local baker

 

‘On Copenhagen’s Vold the evening before Great Prayer Day’
painted by Andreas Herman Hunæus in 1862
Statens Museum for Kunst

 

walking on the ramparts of Kastellet

Svend Bayer studio pottery

/
 

Svend Bayer is Danish but spent much of his early life in Africa or at school in England.

After university he studied at the pottery of Michael Cardew at Wenford Bridge in Cornwall and then travelled widely in Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia to visit country potteries that produced large storage jars. He returned to England in 1975 and set up his studio at Sheepwash in North Devon.

His pottery is fired in a large wood-fired kiln.

On a visit to another pottery that had a wood-fired kiln, I chatted with the potter who had just had a firing and he wanted to apologise because something I had ordered would not be finished until the next firing. He had three apprentices so, when the kiln was loaded for a firing, it held pots by all four potters and from several months of work so the success or not of a firing was about the livelihood for four families. If a firing went badly then it was a disaster for four families. That tension but also the demands of the process itself meant that the kiln was packed with care and with the skill that comes with experience and the whole process had to be supervised through the days and the nights as the kiln was brought up to temperature and then as the kiln cooled before it was unloaded.

But even in the very best studios accidents happen and the web site for Svend Bayer has an account and photographs by Brigitte Colleaux about a firing disaster at the kiln at Kingbeare in April 2019.

Part of the character of finished pots is that ash, impurities in the clay or different effects of the heat on single pot because that heat varies in intensity across the kiln are all essential to both the quality and the character of ceramics from a wood-fired kiln but when there is a problem that can escalate into a disaster

What is so incredible - as you use ceramic tableware like this - is that you can see and feel the way that the potter worked the malleable clay to, for example, pull out and down and smooth into place with a thumb a handle, and then how that action, that requires the coordination of hand and eye and experience, is then fixed and can be seen by all after the pot is fired and for as long as that piece is still used and appreciated.

This work by Svend Bayer is studio pottery of the very highest quality and is the work of a master craftsman and yet it is also functional pottery that is made to be used and, in being used, the bowls and cups and jars enhance day-to-day life in a way that is difficult to measure or quantify.

The Japanese or Korean style jar with four small handles, shown here, sits on the side in my kitchen because it is the perfect size and height to hold all the spatulas and ladles and cooking spoons I need so that means it is used every day.

The small jar with a lid sits alongside the hob and holds cooking salt.

I swear that the bowls, shown here, when they are full of soup, really do make that soup taste better because the bowls make a simple meal of soup and fresh bread feel special.

And, surely, isn’t that what good craftsmanship and good design is really about?

Buying good ceramic tablewares is one simple way towards sustainability because it should be the antidote to our cavalier attitudes to consumerism … the swipe/like/buy/get bore/discard/buy something new world of this century.

These bowls and the casserole were not particularly cheap but nor were they horrendously expensive but, more than forty years after buying them, I still enjoy using them and, every time I use them, they really do make life feel better.

Svend Bayer

 

Skud på stammen at the Design Werck gallery

/

Bord dæk dig - en eventyrlig historie / Table deck yourself - an adventure from fairy tales

An exhibition of furniture with tables and chairs by young cabinetmakers from Snedkernes Uddannelser and with lighting by students from the glass school of EUC Nordvestsjælland in Holbæk.

All the designs were inspired by traditional fairy tales.

The title of the exhibition - Bord dæk dig or Table Set Yourself - is from a story by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm about three brothers who are sent off to make their fortunes as apprentices and about the gifts they are given by their masters when they finish their training …. so more than appropriate for the theme for an exhibition by young furniture makers.

In the tale, one of the young apprentices is given a table by his master that, on command, sets or lays itself with a magic feast. The table was carried on the back of the apprentice so the table here is on a version of trestles and the top is made from many layers of veneer that must symbolise potential new layers as the table 'sets itself'.

The inspiration for the other tables were four tales from Hans Christian Andersen …...

Thumbelina was a girl who was so small that she was carried off by a toad and captured by a beetle but escaped on the back of a swallow and that tale inspired a table shaped like a beetle that is supported on insect-like legs and with chairs like giant insect or butterfly wings.

The Top and the Ball, also by Hans Christian Andersen, is a tale of love and loss and rejection and the complicated inlay of the top reflects the pattern of a satin ball that became lost and faded.

The Little Match Girl was caught out in a snow storm, and struck three of her matches for light and warmth and this has inspired the brilliant legs of the small tables with tops like match boxes with three of the four legs like used and burnt matches and the fourth match unused.

Klods-Hans …. Hans the Blockhead - seems to me to be a rather more obscure story that is less easy to interpret. it is the tale of three brothers, two of whom are sent off on horseback by their father to win the hand of the princess with fine wit and fine words and the blockhead son follows behind on a goat and collects on the way a dead bird and rank rubbish as gifts for the princess. The chairs are inspired by the goat but the table with its staggered ends and sliding extension leaves? …. is this the crenellations of the royal castle?

This is an exhibition about the imagination of the designers whose inventions are realised by cabinetmakers with the technical skills required to produce furniture of this quality.

 

Photographs for the catalogue were taken at the fairy-tale castle of Jægerspris Slot on Sjælland.

 


note:
I think that Skud på stammen can be translated as shoot or bud on the stem or tree trunk. It’s like the English phrase about mighty oaks that from little acorns grow but implies new growth or the new branch on the tree rather than a completely new tree so the relationship between the apprentice and the master.

Design Werck as a venue for the exhibition was planned for the Spring but it had to be postponed because of the lockdown.

Actually, it is a great show for this time of year, in the build up to Christmas, in part because of the fairy tale theme but also because the Christmas season is when, for Danes, the dining table and food becomes such an important part of celebrations with friends and family.

more photographs of the furniture and lights 

the exhibition opened on 6 November 2020
at Design Werck, Krudløbsvej 12, 1439 København
Design Werck
NEXT Uddannelse

note: Design Werck does not open on Mondays or Tuesdays

 

Frama Permanent Collection

/

The catalogue for Frama Permanent Collection includes interesting quotations and some short comments or statements that hint at the ethos of the studio and stress the use of natural materials and the ‘simple geometries’ of the designs ‘resulting in a uniquely warm and honest aesthetic’.

Photographs show the furniture in stark and simple interiors so in a strongly defined space but not in an obvious room to blur any sense of a specific place.

The full catalogue has simple, neat, useful, outline drawings and basic information about designers and materials and dimensions but not, significantly, the date of the design. Presumably, it is called the Permanent Collection because the intention is to remove any sense of a specific time.

My impression is that, having brought together a substantial body of work, Frama will now add to or edit this collection with well-measured discernment.

There are four sections in the catalogue with:

ESSENTIALS
described as "utilitarian pieces" that includes the hall-mark, metal-framed, stools by Toke Lauridsen; the low aml stool in wood by Andreas Martin-Löf; benches; Chair 01 by Frama; a daybed; Shelf Library by Kim Richardt; box units in aluminium by Jonas Trampedach and the round and the rectangular trestle tables by Frama Studio. These are the key pieces.

SIGNATURE
pieces are marked out for their ‘extra sophisticated appearance’ and for more challenging and demanding knowledge for manufacture including the Skeleton 021 Chair designed by Elding Oscarsen Architects and the Triangolo Chair by Per Holland Bastrup

HOME GOODS
are ceramics - robust glazed stoneware by Frama Studio - and glassware for the table from 0405 Glass with some kitchen to table pieces such as cutting boards

LIGHTING
is distinct and a very interesting range of pendant lights, free standing spots and a take on the strip light and all with simple, but clever and elegant, geometric shapes in brass or copper, polished steel or aluminium and powder-coated steel or powder-coated aluminium

The Apothecary Collection and the free-standing units of Frama Studio Kitchen are dealt with separately but can all be seen on the Frama site

FRAMA - the apartment

FRAMA Permanent Collection

 
 

eating inside outside - pop-up restaurant cabins from Meyers

/

With the whole business of lockdown and with restaurants only just being allowed to reopen … and even then only with diners outside … the Meyers restaurant at Skuespilhuset - the national theatre - have set up eight glasshouses on the board walk or terrace outside the theatre with each being large enough to take four people.

There are views across the harbour to The Opera House and,  maybe less romantic, across to the building site on Paper Island. Well less romantic unless you are civil engineers on a date.

There are another four greenhouses at the Meyers Deli on Gammel Kongevej. The setting there, on the street at the side, is not quite as scenic but never-the-less there is a good arrangement of plants to shield diners from the people walking past.

On their web site, the restaurant confess that the idea has come from Amsterdam but it seems to work well, particularly on the harbour.

The glasshouse dining spaces opened at the very end of May and tables in the greenhouses can be booked on line.

Meyers

Christmas 2019

/

This is a Pigeon or Julens Æble - a Pigeon or a Christmas Apple.

It's an old and a traditional variety that was probably introduced into Denmark from France in the 17th century. It is small - smaller than a clementine - and deep red …. it's almost the quintessential apple …. an apple for the Wicked Queen to give the princess … but the flesh is pale and delicate, translucent white with just hints of pink …. and the taste is light, lightly scented, and sweet but not too sweet.

It's picked in late October, when it is still green, and then laid out in the light to ripen and is perfect by Christmas.

I read somewhere that one grower stuck small, heart-shaped, stickers to each apple before they were ripe so that part stayed green. By tradition, small and almost perfect, they were used to decorate the Christmas tree so the ultimate, sustainable and biodegradable buy for this age of glib consumerism.

And they are not just for the tree ….

With the stem and core hollowed out with a small, sharp, knife - I used a grapefruit cutter - and then stuffed with soft brown sugar, roughly-chopped blanched almonds, small chunks of marzipan and fresh cranberries (in equal proportions) and then baked slowly and served up with crème fraîche, they are an almost perfect seasonal dessert.

And this is a first …. a Danish Design Review recipe

Seasons Greetings from Copenhagen

Finders Keepers at Øksnehallen

/

select any photograph to open all in a Lightbox slide show

Today - Saturday 24 August - was the first of the two days of the design market at Øksnehallen - the old market hall in the Meat Packing District of Copenhagen that is just to the south and west of the central railway station.

Finders Keepers is a celebration of small independent design companies in Denmark and includes clothing, household textiles, leather goods as well as ceramics and glass and furniture. There are play areas for children and food stalls on the forecourt.

Finders Keepers continues tomorrow 25 August 2019
at Oksnehallen in the Meat Packing District of Copenhagen

 
 

Lives & Works in Fiskars ..... an event for June at Design Werck in Copenhagen

/
 

 

On Thursday evening there was the launch of a special event at Design Werck.

In partnership with ONOMA - the Cooperative of Artisans, Designers and Artists in Fiskars - Design Werck will show furniture, art, textiles, graphics; ceramic works and glass made in the historic village that is 80 kilometres west of Helsinki in Finland.

Founded in 1996, the association now represents 117 members. Twenty members of the cooperative will be showing their work here in Copenhagen and the exhibition, with works for sale, will continue through until 30th June.

Design Werck, Krudtløbsvej 12, Copenhagen K

 

 
 

Artists, designers and makers showing their work:

  • Heikki Aska, cabinet maker
  • Marko Escartin, wood worker
  • Antrei Hartikainen, cabinet maker
  • Lulu Halme, graphic designer
  • Sonja Tuulia Halttunen, graphic designer
  • Elina Makkonen, goldsmith
  • Olli Kari, muscician
  • Petri Koivusipilä, cabinet maker
  • Minja Kolehainenen, cabinet maker
  • Ivan Kulvik, cabinet maker
  • Camilla Moberg, industrial and glass designer
  • Piitu Nykopp, visual artist
  • Deepa Panchamia, textile artist
  • Katja Öhrnberg, visual artist
  • Ari Turunen, jewellery smith
  • Arto Vuohelainen, photographer
  • Karin Widnäs, ceramist
  • Tuulia Penttilä, cabinet maker
  • Matti Söderkultalahti, cabinet maker
 

food for the opening event was by Restaurant Kuparipaja in Fiskars and iced cider, gin and akvavit was from the Ägräs Distillery in Fiskars

 

Frama for 3daysofdesign

/
 

 

FRAMA studio and store in St. Pauls Apotek in Fredericiagade was open on the first evening of 3daysofdesign with people moving out onto the pavement to enjoy the warm weather.

This was an opportunity to show new additions to the collection - so a selection of cutlery in the ICHI range from Ole Palsby, now sold in the store, and a new tie in with home goods from the Japanese brand Ouur.

FRAMA

 

 
 

Hay for 3daysofdesign

/

 

For 3daysofdesign, the design company Hay have taken over Lindencrones Palæ on Sankt Annæ Plads (Lindencrone’s Palace on Saint Anne’s Square). So going to this event was an opportunity to look around a pretty amazing building but for Hay it gave them dramatic settings for their furniture, lighting and kitchen and tableware. One large room had the Result Chair and Pyramid Table … maybe a first for a display designer or stylist to have so much space that they could stack so many tables so high.

Just in terms of general design principles, the show highlighted again an important aspect of Danish interiors … that in many Danish homes furniture and fittings of very different periods and styles are deliberately mixed together … so starkly modern lighting or steel and glass furniture in an old apartment that has panelling or ornate plasterwork and sash windows - though perhaps not often on the scale of this Palæ. 

Or in a starkly modern home you will find either a carefully-chosen chair from the classic period of Danish design in the 1950s and 60s or old and much-loved pieces of furniture that have been inherited.

One general but simple lesson here in the Hay display was that choosing tableware and so on carefully and then using multiples but leaving it all out as open storage on display can look pretty good.

For Hay, the building also provided an impressive setting for showing off, with pride, their latest products and for welcoming and entertaining visitors who could sit in the calm and quiet of an old entrance passage used as a temporary cafe or people could have a coffee out in the sun of the courtyard that has been fitted out with Hay’s Palissade furniture. 

Hay