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Arne Jacobsen 1902 - 1971 At heart he was an artist, he had a tremendous talent for drawing and a great facility with watercolors, but ever practical he enrolled in a four year diploma in masonry from the Technical School in Copenhagen where he was born, Arne Jacobsen moved on to study Architecture for three years at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (1924-27). Having spent his holiday's as a bricklayer's apprentice his knowledge of this most technical of arts was truly comprehensive. In 1928 he received an award for a design for the proposed new 'National Museum in Klampenborg.
In 1930 he won a design competition entitled 'The House of the Future'. The plans that he submitted were a true expression of the new international style of functionalism that was being developed by the Werkbund and Bauhaus in Germany at the time. The award brought him acclaim and commissions - the first of which was a futurist, modern exhibition building, which enabled him to immediately open his own architectural practice. The practice was busy and very successful - producing such projects as the Bellevue Sea Bathing Area in 1932, the housing development Bellavista 1934, The HIK Tennis Court 1936, city halls in Aarhus 1939-42 and Soelleroed 1940-42, apartments, terrace houses and one family homes in Gentofte and the surrounding area 1932-38 and the Stelling House 1937. These were all favorably received, and it looked like the world was his oyster. However with the outbreak of the second world war Arne, being Jewish was forced to flee Denmark with his wife Jonna Jacobsen, a textile designer. They went to Sweden where the design community welcomed them warmly. Arne's drawings were used in a range of wallpaper and textiles - that launched in 1944, became quite successful. After the war they returned to post war Denmark, a Denmark in ruin that had to be rebuilt. Inspired by the shortage of building material Arne turned to traditional methods and materials, combining them skillfully in contemporary designs. During the late forties he produced some of his most beautiful and characteristic designs. During the '50s, working together with his colleague Flemming Lassen he became totally engrossed in projects, taking on the whole building design including the complete interior, sometimes even down to the teaspoons, knives and forks. For example the Munkegard School, where in true Jacobsen tradition, he designed the furniture as well. The furniture designs for the school shot him to international fame in yet another industry. His unique design perspective was to view furniture through the eyes of children. The 'Tongue' chair, and later the similarly inspired 3 legged stackable 'Ant' (which was to be the making of Fritz Hansen the reknowned furniture manufacturer). At the end of the 50s Arne Jacobsen designed the Royal Hotel in Copenhagen, and for that project the Egg, the Swan, the Swan sofa and Series 3300. In 1964 an foreign commission took him to St Catherine's College in Oxform. Here he built an extension of the famous university, including a forbidable lanscaped garden that of course he designed himself as part ofthe project. Upon completion of the project he was given an honorary doctorate from Oxford University. In 1961 - 66 he worked with Otto Weitling. Together they did a number of huge buildings for the Hamburg Electricity Works, and the Danish Central Bank, as well as two new city centers. Jacobsen's philosophy was that a design should initially capture the awareness of the audience, then seek to combine beauty, practicality and function, qualities rarely achieved in unison. In his 'Swan' family of chairs, it was recognised that here indeed he had achieved all of these design criteria. The 'Egg'; 'Pot' and 'Drop' armchairs of the series, ushered in a new kind of sensual, free form classical modernity, uniquely allowing a variety of sitting positions. |
Modern Furniture Designers
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