Sustainability and reuse at Trends & Traditions 2023

/
 


Sustainability is not just about which materials we use and how we use them but also about salvaging and reusing materials and about restoring or repurposing what we already have or, simply, making sure that what we buy has been made well so that it lasts.

Nearly ten years ago, for an early post, I wrote about Artek 2nd Cycle in Helsinki where the Finnish design company takes back it’s furniture for resale if it comes with it’s back story. I have just checked and I’m glad to say that 2nd Cycle is still going strong.

It was interesting at Trends & Traditions to see that Fritz Hansen, to its credit, is now offering a service to supply new shells for some of its chairs and also offers a service on it’s web site where you can buy spare parts for chairs including spacing blocks and new castors or wheel sets.

Too often, a small break or damage to one part of a chair or table has, in the past, meant that the whole thing has to be replaced …. it is inevitable that in day-to-day use parts like handles or hinges get broken but for too many large, international companies, keeping and selling spare parts has not been to their advantage …. why sell a small rubber block and tell a customer how to replace it if you can either sell a complete replacement piece of furniture or save yourself the hassle and cost of maintaining a stock of spare parts.

One of the clear selling points for Danish design is the quality of production - with the presumption therefore that the furniture will have a long life - but also Danish furniture companies have a strong sense of continuity …. Chair 7 has been in the Fritz Hansen catalogue continuously since 1955 so that is a lot of chairs that might simply need a new set of plastic caps for the legs. 

Sometimes, restoring or upgrading furniture needs specialists or the work requires equipment or specialist tools so there has to be work for a workshop in a city like Copenhagen where, for instance, the metal frames of chairs or tables could be professionally cleaned and then repainted to a high standard to be reunited with an original shell or high-quality top in ‘real’ wood or where a new colour or new upholstery can give furniture a new and equally long second life. 

Fritz Hansen SPARE PARTS

Fritz Hansen ... an anniversary

/

This year, the Danish furniture and design company Fritz Hansen mark a major anniversary having been in business now for 150 years ... the cabinet maker Fritz Hansen established the company in October 1872. 

For nearly a century, their workshops were in the city, in a courtyard at 10 Overgaden Oven Vandet, just inside the old embankments of the defences at the south end of Christianshavn.

As the company expanded they opened a saw mill in Allerød in the 1890s and then, in 1914, expanded the workshops in Christianshavn, across the lane to the south, to a group of buildings in the block bounded by Store Søndervoldstræde - the narrow lane - and by Dronningensgade and Lille Søndervoldstræde.

Christian E Hansen, the son of the founder, became a director of the company in 1899 and not only began the first collaborations with leading architects to design major pieces but also won significant and influential contracts for Fritz Hansen including commissions to make chairs for what was then the newly-completed City Hall and chairs for the Danish Parliament building.

By 1965 the sawmill, and the factory and administration there, had expanded and the whole company moved out to Allerød.

From 2000 - the company was known as The Republic of Fritz Hansen but since 2019, under Josef Kaiser - their new CEO - they have returned to the simple and straightforward name of the founder.

Fritz Hansen produces new designs by established designers like Kasper Salto and Cecilie Manz and new young designers - including, for instance, the light by Isabel Ahm and Signe Lund and the Stub Table by Mette Schelde but they are also justifiably proud of an amazing back catalogue.

They made many of the great designs from the classic period of Danish design from the middle decades of the last century including the DAN Chair by Søren Hansen from 1932; the dining chair from the Bellevue restaurant at Klampenborg by Arne Jacobsen from 1934 and, of course, the renowned chairs by Jacobsen from the 1950s including the Ant Chair from 1952; 7'eren or Chair 7 and the chairs for the SAS hotel including The Swan and The Egg.

The Swan Chair and The Egg designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1958 and still in production -
photographed in the Copenhagen store of Fritz Hansen at Valkendorfsgade 4

 

Fritz Hansen himself was a cabinetmaker but from the 1930s Fritz Hansen began to make steel-framed furniture, experimenting with their own versions of Bauhaus cantilevered chairs and then produced the Cantilevered Chair by Mogens Lassen in 1933.

They bought the rights to and they still produce steel-framed chairs designed by Poul Kjærholm including the PK 11, the PK 22, the PK 24 recliner - possibly the most elegant Danish chair ever produced - and the iconic PK 25 and the PK 62.

That's an astounding back catalogue of classic Danish designs.

 

Fritz Hansen
to mark the anniversary, Fritz Hansen
have published their time line

København Stadsarkiv 52050

the first workshops were in the courtyard at Overgaden Oven Vandet in Christianshavn

an amazing photograph from the company archive with men from the workshops in the courtyard in Christianshavn

chairs designed by Poul Kjærholm and still produced by Fritz Hansen include the PK 22, PK 25, PK 62 and PK 11

 

what makes a design classic a design classic?

/

Thinking about the television series that has been searching for Denmark's Next Classic I realised that the only conclusion that you can come to, having watched all the programmes, is that there is absolutely no limit to the imagination and the ingenuity of Danish designers.

Over six programmes the five designers were set a task where all of them had to design a chair or all of them design a light and, at the end of the programme, one was chosen as the winner for that week and that design project.

And week after week there were no two designs that were remotely similar but most, never-the-less, could be seen to be more or less Danish or Scandinavian in style and character.

So, is it even possible to define precisely what makes one design a classic and another not ... because that was the ultimate aim of the series .... to pick a design that could be Denmark's next classic.

It feels more and more like an elusive moniker that is difficult to pin down even though we all think we can spot a classic design when we see it.

Most people - both Danes in general and people working in design professions - would agree that the shell chair designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1955 and known as the Series 7 Chair is a design classic.

It is immediately recognisable and most Danes would be able to name the designer. It is so well known that it can be recognised immediately even if you only see a small part and even recognise it if the chair has been modified.

For Fritz Hansen, it is their most successful chair and has been in continuous production since 1955.

It is light and comfortable, practical and robust and it came along at just the right time as people were moving out of old apartments in the city and into new, larger and lighter apartments or into row houses and villas in the suburbs.

But, having said all that it was far from being either a conventional or a safe design. The use of moulded plywood and the type of chair, with a shell that could be used on different arrangements of metal legs or pedestals, was certainly new. You could and you can buy the chair in various configurations and that meant it could be used around a formal dining table or at a desk or in a classroom or in a lecture theatre or in a canteen.

Too often a design tries to do too many things and never does one well but this chair works well almost anywhere and Fritz Hansen understood that. Over the years they have produced it in a huge number of different colours and with different legs or bases so it has tried to fit in with any taste or style ... an almost impossible job for most designs.

But even with the Series 7, it does not give us the ultimate definition for what makes a design classic a design classic.

Is a design a classic because it is firmly of its period ... so that business of zeitgeist ... or is it better if a design is timeless ...  a difficult trick because tastes and needs and general lifestyles change and that change can be pretty relentless so does a classic design have to be from a distinct and obvious period but somehow not effected by the passing of time?

Nor is it enough to be just popular ... although clearly a lot of Chair 7s have been sold .... because more IKEA products would be ranked as classics.

In fact, you would think that being popular would be the kiss of death, because what is popular now can rapidly be devalued if it is seen as too popular - so it morphs from passé to hackneyed and then trite although, actually,  that then gives a design the chance for a come back as something you buy as ironic to show you have a sense of humour and only bought it because people won't seriously believe you like it. That happened to larva lamps when they got a second life and we could yet see a revival of avocado bathroom 'suites' and fake-fur toilet lid covers.

Some designs are classics for exactly the opposite reason to being popular because they were produced in small numbers and have a rarity value ... just look at the catalogues of the auction house Bruun Rasmussen or at catalogues for the furniture dealers Dansk Møbel Kunst to see good examples. The furniture of Finn Juhl was certainly in that category until House of Finn Juhl put the designs back into production and made them not only better known but, more important, available.

Nostalgia or a place in the national psyche can make a design widely admired although that is probably a better definition of an iconic design and that is subtly different to a classic design.

7’eren / Chair 7 designed by Arne Jacobsen.
Manufactured by Fritz Hansen the Series 7 Chair has been in continuous production since it was designed in 1955 and is probably the best known design in Denmark. It can be identified even if you see just a small part and it is immediately recognisable even when the shell is perched on a log or an upturned bucket as seen at the Fritz Hansen store in Copenhagen.

 

Even the word classic itself is more than a little ambiguous.

In this context it certainly has absolutely nothing to do with ancient Greece.

Classic can be used as an alternative to old as in classical music or antique and rare, so worth the price, as in classic cars.

At one time music was separated into genres so folk music, pop music - a sub genre of light music as in not heavy and serious - and Classical Music so vaguely serious and vaguely orchestral but surely no one would claim that the Chair 7 could be described as serious.

When I was a kid, a joke or prank was classic or, one better, "epic".

Back to design. When talking about Danish design, it's generally accepted that Classic Danish furniture is the furniture produced in the 1950s and early 1960s by "masters" like Hans Wegner or Arne Jacobsen but, just because a chair was made, say in 1960, does not make it, automatically, a classic. The Wire Cone Chair by Verner Panton from that year is hardly a classic. For many, the chair is perverse or even a bit of an acquired taste unless it is used in a full-blown 60's interior for a film set.

 

The Wire Cone Chair designed by Verner Panton in 1960

 

Being a classic design does not have to be a positive thing. Many young designers think classic furniture designs from the classic period of Danish design that are still in production actually block their careers and owning a design classic indicates that you prefer a safe purchase that friends and neighbours will recognise and appreciate because buying classic designs for your home can be a way to fit in

Maybe I'm just over thinking this. Maybe a Danish design classic is simply good design that is widely acknowledged as good design and a design that is distinct but not too extreme, and has an element of longevity so it continues to be popular and continues in production because it continues to be relevant and appreciated.

 

Fritz Hansen Chair 7 by Arne Jacobsen

Fritz Hansen for 3daysofdesign

/

Fritz Hansen have relaunched the Oxford Chair that was designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1962 for St Catherine’s College in Oxford.

For 3daysofdesign, store showed not only the new chair but also Oxford Chairs from the companies archive collection. Designmuseum Danmark has a high back version in laminated wood with an oak veneer and steam-bent base that was designed for the high table in the great hall of the college but this was the first time I had seen the lower version of the chair with arms (right).

The current versions of the chair have metal bases with a column and five feet in either steel or powder coated black, with or without castors, and with or without thin and very elegant metal arms.

Upholstered in leather or one of the FH textiles it is a strikingly contemporary chair. It has that distinct, elegant, scroll-shaped profile from the side but unless you recognise that, most would be hard pressed to spot that the design is now 60 years old.

Fritz Hansen,
Valkendorfsgade 4,
Copenhagen

 

Along with the displays about the Oxford Chair, Fritz Hansen set out a number of desks and chairs in the store as their suggestions for possible home work stations as, still caught up with the Coronavirus pandemic, substantial numbers are working from home or splitting time between home and office to reduce the number of people in an office at any one time.

As the pandemic runs its course, it is unclear just how many workers will return to their offices for a full five days every week. If people work from home then there will be a growing market for, at the very least, chairs that are ergonomically designed, so are comfortable, and chairs that can be moved and that swivel. Sitting on one of the chairs from the dining room or balancing a laptop on your lap for eight hours - even if you think being stretched out on the sofa all day is fantastic compared with the noise and hassle and distractions of the office and even if you can do it in your underwear rather than the normal work outfit, it’s still far from ideal.

Fritz Hansen

 

Being very predictable, for my desk at home, I have an aluminium soft pad chair from Vitra that was designed by Charles and Ray Eames in 1958 but at least I have half a Fritz Hansen work station because my desk is the Plano table by Pelikan Design - the design partnership of Niels Gammelgaard and Lars Mathiesen. *

It’s ideal because although it is relatively compact at 120cm wide, it’s 80cm deep so with the Apple screen pushed to the back, there is still plenty of table space for keyboard, books, papers and so on.

The main frame of the table, a metal rectangle, is inset from the edge of the top but there are diagonally set spurs that take the tubular legs at each corner that can be unscrewed when the table is packed up and moved ….. this is the fifth apartment it has been in in nearly twenty years. Not so much home office as mobile office.

* note: no longer in the Fritz Hansen catalogue

 

Poul Kjærholm at Fritz Hansen

/

For 3daysofdesign Fritz Hansen set out displays or organise demonstrations in their Copenhagen store at Valkendorfsgade 4 but, this year, they have tried something that is much more ambitious because the space of the store has been taken over for a major exhibition on the work of the architect and designer Poul Kjærholm.

Fritz Hansen acquired the license to produce the works by Kjærholm after the death of the designer in 1980 and a significant proportion of his works are still in the Fritz Hansen catalogue.

The furniture currently available was shown here together with drawings and photographs from the company archive and with some of the chair frames stripped down to show how they are constructed and, along with these, are some of the bolts and fixings that are such a crucial part of the engineering of these pieces.

The exhibition opened on 24 October 2020 and continues through to the 14 November 2020

Fritz Hansen

 
 

a new catalogue from Fritz Hansen

/

If the corona virus means that you are in lock down - in social isolation at home - the end of the crisis may seem to be a very long way in the future but surely we should not let it stop us day dreaming.

Fritz Hansen have just released their new catalogue and it's available now on line.

There are the room settings for the furniture that we now take for granted but they seem to have a slightly different style …. something more of the 1950s or 1960s. Maybe that is the colour tone of the photographs that seems to be moving towards that distinctive look of Kodak Ektachrome or maybe it’s because some of the models are wearing what look frighteningly like trouser suits or flares.

Of course there is the traditional catalogue of all the furniture but it looks as if all colour options are shown rather than simply listed under a single photograph and this fits with the policy from Fritz Hansen for releasing classic designs in new colours. Those colours seem to be following the current and distinct move from white walls and pale wood to much stronger colours.

the new Fritz Hansen catalogue

 

a special edition of The Egg

/

my thanks to staff of Fritz Hansen in Valkendorfsgade in Copenhagen for allowing me to photograph the chair and for the time we spent discussing the work of Jacobsen and the designs and colours of the Hallingdal range

 

The Egg in suede at the Copenhagen store but showing clearly the same strong and more sculptural look seen when the chair is covered with leather

To mark the anniversary of The Egg - Arne Jacobsen designed the chair for the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen in 1958 - Fritz Hansen have released a special version covered in the Kvadrat fabric called Hallingdal that was designed by Nanna Ditzel in 1965 … a textile that is not as well known or as easily recognised outside Denmark but, like the chair itself, a design classic that has been in continuous production since it was launched. 

Although I can’t know the real figures, there is a very good chance that more people have sat on a chair covered with Hallingdal - without realising what they were sitting on - than have sat in an Egg chair … in the late 60s and through the 1970s for its well-deserved reputation for being hardwearing and for the range of colours it was the go-to fabric for upholstery for commercial seating for office chairs, chairs for schools, and seating for doctors’ and hospital waiting rooms.

It was a revelation seeing the chair covered in Hallingdal in the Copenhagen showroom of Fritz Hansen. 

Now we tend to know The Egg in the version covered in leather emphasising the bold sculptural quality of the design and often making the piece in a room a sort of statement of status. However, covered in a fabric, particularly in a soft natural colour, the chair immediately looks more subtle, more discrete, more inviting and comfortable and, curiously, smaller.

Initially, Jacobsen wanted these chairs in the hotel to be covered with leather but for fairly obvious economic reasons had to agree that chairs used in hotel rooms would be covered in fabric. He designed a relatively heavy fabric in a mix of the deep blue and green shades he often used but also gave it a stronger texture with distinct wavy lines through the weave.

The Hallingdal fabric is actually a bit of a chameleon for it takes on very different characteristics depending on the combination of colours … in natural greys or browns or creams used in combination then it looks like a Harris Tweed but with contrasting colours for warp and weft it gains a sharp pin or small check pattern that is quite sassy and in strong bold single colours - for instance a strong red - then an Egg can look just as powerful and assertive as when the chair is covered with leather.

This shows that even when a form is as bold and as distinctive as The Egg, colour and texture are incredibly important in reinforcing the character of the design or modifying it and toning it down.

note:
I understand this special edition is currently available only in Denmark

Kvadrat

Republic of Fritz Hansen

 

Dine, Drink, Daze & Dream - at Moltkes Palæ for 3daysofdesign

/
 

Elephant Chair designed for NORR11 by Kristian Sofus Hansen and manufactured by Kvist Industries

 

For 3daysofdesign, Træ- og møbelindustrien or the Association of Danish Wood and Furniture Industries took over the main rooms on the street frontage of Moltkes Palæ on Bredgade in the centre of Copenhagen.

It was good to see the work of the serious side of the furniture industry with stands here representing the work of Cane-line; HUBE, Kvist Industries, Magnus Olesen, Møbelsnedkeri Kjeldtoft; PP Møbler; Skovby Møbler; Re Nature Beds; Republic of Fritz Hansen and WON. This was the crucial but, shall we say, the less hyped and primped up part of the industry.

As some of the style journalists or bloggers rush from venue to venue taking square pictures of the amazing plates of finger food and grab another glass of booze, they might do well to remember that these are the factories that make the furniture that sits under the label. That's not to say this was all about fork-lift trucks and export paperwork … it was styled by the design studio All the Way to Paris and certainly did not look like a trade show … but what was shown very clearly was exactly the same passion and enthusiasm for design and for high-quality production that is the hall mark of the Danish furniture industry as it developed through the 1950s.

NO1 - new chair from Fritz Hansen designed by Nendo

 

Fritz Hansen were here but with a simple stand that just showed the chair they have just launched - Chair NO1 by the designer Nendo. This is an interesting chair that has a beautiful and very elegant curved seat and plain curved back in laminated wood on a relatively traditional frame in turned and joined wood that, in terms of style, is a hybrid of traditional Japanese and Danish forms. This was not a display for the glamour life-style magazines but appropriately something to show to fellow manufacturers.

PP Møbler showed a desk by Wegner and an office chair - the 502 - designed by Hans Wegner. They did not need to show more … every manufacturer here would know the catalogue of PP Møbler … but again it was all about meeting fellow professionals for what is in part a social event and in part a way of entertaining established clients and a venue for making new business contacts. Even if you are only slightly interested in the workings of what is behind the branded stores this is fascinating.

PP Møbler is not a furniture factory but are still a major workshop of cabinetmakers. They have to be commercially astute to survive but, for them, a core element is  maintaining the system of training and apprenticeships … after all, the life-blood of the Danish industry.

That's not to suggest that the other companies are production-line factories and there is a fascinating symbiotic relationship between these manufacturers, the design companies they serve; established designers, working either in house or working independently; and the young designers and the young furniture makers coming up through the system.

Talking to the representative from Kvist, I was asking about the Elephant chair that they manufacture for the design company NORR11, when the team from NORR11 arrived and there was a brief opportunity to talk to Kristian Sofus Hansen who designed the chair. I hope to be able to do a longer profile on this chair which could be a place to discuss how a design evolves and to explore that crucial relationship between designer, design company and manufacturer.

 

The Pot chair by Arne Jacobsen to be relaunched

/

 

At the Stockholm Furniture Fair in February, The Republic of Fritz Hansen will relaunch the Pot Chair that was designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1959 for the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen.

Fritz Hansen manufactured the original furniture for the hotel including, of course, the famous Egg Chair and the Swan Chair. What now strikes me as incredible is that Jacobsen, with a relatively small design office, worked not only on the building itself - a large, complex building - a high concrete tower using what were then new construction techniques in Scandinavia - but he also designed textiles, cutlery and glassware for the restaurants and an amazing and distinctive range of furniture including bedside cupboards and desks and other fixed furniture in the hotel rooms but also this chair, the Pot Chair, that was used in the bars and lounges of the hotel, and square, almost wedge shaped, upholstered arm chairs and sofas on thin steel legs that he designed for the airport departure lounge attached to the hotel - the 3300 series - another chair that also deserves to be better known. 

Republic of Fritz Hansen

1958 was a good year for design

/

the display at Designmuseum Danmark in Copenhagen with the three famous chairs that Arne Jacobsen designed in 1958 for the SAS Royal Hotel with the floor-standing lamp from the same year

 

This year - through 2018 - Fritz Hansen will mark the 60th anniversary of the furniture designed by Arne Jacobsen for the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen.

The Egg and The Swan were shown to the public for the first time at the Formes Scandinaves exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in November 1958 and at the showroom of Fritz Hansen in January 1959. The hotel was completed and opened in 1960.

Furniture was produced by Fritz Hansen for the 275 rooms and for the public spaces of the hotel - perhaps the most significant contract for any major modern furniture company. 

Fritz Hansen has just released a limited edition of The Egg and there will be anniversary editions of The Drop chair in September and of The Swan in December.

The hotel is one of the most important examples of what German critics describe usefully as Gesamtkunstwerk or total design. These chairs, on their own, would be considered as outstanding designs but Jacobsen, with a small design team - the studio was in his own home - produced the designs for the building; the interior designs for complex public spaces including the lobby with its circular staircase and the large transit hall for the airline; designs for all the architectural hardware including door handles and stair rails; a phenomenal range of furniture including several other chairs, tables, bedside cupboards; rugs; light fittings and even the glassware, silverware and cutlery for the dining room. A truly remarkable achievement.

Republic of Fritz Hansen

new Fritz Hansen design store

/

Fritz Hansen have just completed work on a major project in the centre of the city and have opened a new show room in an historic town house as part of the redevelopment of former post office buildings.

Republic of Fritz Hansen Valkendorfsgade 4, 1115 Copenhagen K

The company had offices and display space at Pakhus48 in the north harbour but this will be the first time that Fritz Hansen have themselves had a retail space in the city.

Fritz Hansen has concept stores in Oslo, Stockholm, London, Milan New York and Tokyo.