Danish designers are renowned around the world for their beautiful and functional chairs. This substantial new book tells the full story of the Danish chairs that were created during the 20th century.
The Danish Chair: An International Affair is structured around chair types and illustrates how the “golden age” of Danish furniture design was driven by the study and refinement of historical furniture types, including chairs from abroad that served as important sources of inspiration. It traces the family relations between the chairs and shows how they influenced each other in terms of detailing, construction and concept.
Design was the cultural phenomenon that put Denmark on the world map in the mid-20th century. The international brand of Danish design arose in 1949 when American journalists began to write about the Danish furniture at the Copenhagen Cabinetmakers’ Guild exhibition. This was not only the beginning of an important export opportunity but was also taken up as a challenge by Danish designers, who became world-renowned for their obsession with creating the perfect chair. Prominent figures such as Hans J. Wegner, Arne Jacobsen, Børge Mogensen, Finn Juhl and Poul Kjærholm were constantly seeking to refine existing chair types, and the chair became the touchstone, the true measure of the designer’s skill.
The Danish Chair is a highly visual introduction to the Danish chair of the 20th century. It is based on a permanent exhibition of the same name that opened at Designmuseum Danmark in 2016 and written by the museum’s head of exhibits and collections, Christian Holmsted Olesen.
Arne Jacobsen's Series 7 Chair (1955) is reproduced from 'The Danish Chair.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Architect's Newspaper
Adrian Madlener
In the book, Holmsted Olesen positions Danish design at the center of an international and historical dialogue. The author reveals how celebrated midcentury modern chair designs by Danish icons took inspiration from history and abroad.
Daniella Ohad
This book is a great addition to any library, as it's not only providing encyclopedic data on most of the famed Danish chairs in modern times, but also puts them in historical contexts. By highlighting their relationship to such historical examples as the ancient Klismos Chair, abstract Rietveld Zig-Zag Chair, and the vernacular Windsor Chair, it provides an in-depth understanding of Danish Modern.
L'Officiel
[The] visual catalogue celebrates the aesthetics of Danish chairs.
1stdibs
Carol Kino
The book, a handsome rectangular volume, is organized roughly like the show, with one chair per spread, showing how they relate to each other and the evolution of Danish design.
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"The chair is a very difficult object," Ludwig Mies van der Rohe once said. "Everyone who has ever tried to make one knows that. There are endless possibilities and many problems—the chair has to be light, it has to be strong, it has to be comfortable. It is almost easier to build a skyscraper than a chair." Featured image—of Hans J. Wegner's 1950 Wishbone Chair—is reproduced from Strandberg Publishing's new and beautifully designed encyclopedic history of twentieth-century Danish chair design, The Danish Chair. Wegner's most successful chair, the Wishbone was a variation on the modern bentwood chair. Less expensive to manufacture than his iconic 1949 frame "Chair," the Wishbone builds on the design of ancient klismos chairs. "It has a steam-bent backrest and a Chinese splat," author Christian Holmsted Olesen writes, "and the fragmentation of the backrest is reminiscent of the slanted struts on Windsor chairs, while the undercarriage has similarities with old peasant chairs. Wegner's Wishbone Chair is not only a refinement of a traditional type, it is also a synthesis of several different models and hence something completely new." continue to blog
Gerrit Rietveld's cantilevered 1932-33 Zig-Zag Chair, produced by Dutch manufacturer and retail outlet, Metz & Co., is reproduced from The Danish Chair: An International Affair, published by new D.A.P. publisher, Strandberg. The Zig-Zag Chair is sculptural and simple, Christian Holmsted Olesen writes, citing the designer's striking focus on construction. "Rietveld was a member of the Dutch design group De Stijl, whose proponents favored abstract and distorted forms. He himself said, ‘It isn’t a chair but a designer joke.’ In other words, this was not about comfort or ergonomics but about pursuing the idea of a chair— an abstraction that challenged the very concept of a chair." Although the chair plays with the illusion of having been constructed in one multi-angular piece, it also makes very deliberate use of joinery and screws. "For the modernists, honest, easily decoded structures were a goal in themselves," Olesen concludes. continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 5.75 x 10.5 in. / 336 pgs / 249 color / 46 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $65.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $90 ISBN: 9788793604315 PUBLISHER: Strandberg Publishing AVAILABLE: 2/19/2019 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Published by Strandberg Publishing. Text by Christian Holmsted Olesen.
The golden age of the perfect chair
Danish designers are renowned around the world for their beautiful and functional chairs. This substantial new book tells the full story of the Danish chairs that were created during the 20th century.
The Danish Chair: An International Affair is structured around chair types and illustrates how the “golden age” of Danish furniture design was driven by the study and refinement of historical furniture types, including chairs from abroad that served as important sources of inspiration. It traces the family relations between the chairs and shows how they influenced each other in terms of detailing, construction and concept.
Design was the cultural phenomenon that put Denmark on the world map in the mid-20th century. The international brand of Danish design arose in 1949 when American journalists began to write about the Danish furniture at the Copenhagen Cabinetmakers’ Guild exhibition. This was not only the beginning of an important export opportunity but was also taken up as a challenge by Danish designers, who became world-renowned for their obsession with creating the perfect chair. Prominent figures such as Hans J. Wegner, Arne Jacobsen, Børge Mogensen, Finn Juhl and Poul Kjærholm were constantly seeking to refine existing chair types, and the chair became the touchstone, the true measure of the designer’s skill.
The Danish Chair is a highly visual introduction to the Danish chair of the 20th century. It is based on a permanent exhibition of the same name that opened at Designmuseum Danmark in 2016 and written by the museum’s head of exhibits and collections, Christian Holmsted Olesen.
