ARNE JACOBSEN
“If a building becomes architecture, then it is art,” observed Arne Jacobsen, the legendary Danish architect and designer, in an interview with Copenhagenagen newspaper Politiken. His modern, artistic creations were at the forefront of 20th-century Nordic design right up to his death in 1971. Jacobsen’s outstanding architecture, furniture, textiles, silverware and wallpaper perfectly exemplify Scandinavian design’s cool simplicity, and they can still be found in contemporary homes and offices around the world. Born in February 1902, Jacobsen was initially apprenticed as a mason before being admitted to the Architecture School of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. He began working on small design projects after he graduated in 1927. Among these were a number of award-winning chairs in the mid-1920s, followed by family homes in the 1930s. By the 1940s, Jacobsen was designing large-scale community projects, such as gymnasia
and schools, and later apartment buildings and bank towers. Jacobsen is best known for his work on the SAS Royal Hotel Copenhagen and St Catherine’s College at Oxford University. His most memorable furniture designs include the Ant chair, which he created in 1952 and revitalised in 1955 with Series 7. He also designed the Egg and Swan chairs for the SAS Royal Hotel in 1957. Both of these seemingly simple designs embody architectural elements and modern aesthetics. Almost always pictured with a pipe in his hand, Jacobsen established his own design house in 1930. Being Jewish, he had to avoid arrest during the German occupation of Denmark in World War II by escaping to neighbouring Sweden, which he did in a small rowing boat in 1943. He spent his exile there focusing on creating textile and wallpaper designs before returning home in 1945. A relentless creator of outstanding designs, Jacobsen never slowed
down throughout his rich and colourful life. In fact, he declared: “That business of relaxation, which is so terribly modern today, is all good and well, but my work interests me so much, and is so varied, that many times it seems relaxing when I go from one aspect to another.” Even right up to his death in March 1971, Jacobsen knew exactly where he was happiest. “I have no philosophy; my favourite thing is sitting in the studio,” he once said.