“By making this chair five times as expensive, three times as heavy, half as comfortable, and as quarter as beautiful, an architect can very well win himself a name.”
— Poul Henningsen (1894-1967), Danish author, architect and critic, in Kritisk Revy, December 1927
Kaare Klint’s introduction to his class on draftsmanship for joiners at the Copenhagen Technical Society’s School (1920-1921 school year):
As you might know, the school is quite new; we have only had one winter’s evening classes as a basis. I must consequently tell you a bit about our results from last winter.
We began, as we will now, with surveys of old furniture, first of all to see whether pupils had a complete understanding of ordinary projection drawing and whether they were able to work precisely, and secondly, to arouse their interest in old furniture traditions and culture….
Last year we began by surveying two different groups of furniture. One comprises the forms that were created by important artists. I consider furniture in the other group (of furniture pieces) that, through the work of several people, and through evolution over a period of time, have achieved the simplest utilitarian form….
(This) other form, the one that was created over a long period of time and for ordinary use, is the one that we will be especially concerned with this year here at the school. You need not the distinctive, but the common and exceedingly utilitarian form.
From days past, we have furniture to which experience has given a form that has not been significantly changed over the ages and can be used to full advantage this very day.
The beauty of this furniture depends on its perfect, simple structure and utility. Although the pieces come from different periods, they have this in common….
We will find the best of old constructions and with recent experience seek to create furniture with the best possible craftsmanship.
— excerpt from the “Kaare Klint” monograph by Gorm Harkaer, a production of the Klintiana project.
One of my latest obsessions has been reading about the 20th-century design studies by Kaare Klint and Børge Morgensen that sought to create furniture systems that could be adapted to store anything.
Today I’m working through Morgensen’s Øresund series, developed between 1955 and 1967. One of the foundations of this system is a module of 19.6 cm (almost 7-3/4”). These modules plus a plinth module of 9.5 cm (3-3/4”) can be combined into a wide variety of pleasing forms.
It’s not a big leap to distill the systems into whole-number ratios, a la “By Hand & Eye.”
Here are some of the formulas from Øresund.
Table height: 68.3 cm (26-7/8”). Three modules plus a plinth module.
Countertop height: 97.9 cm (34.6”) Four modules plus a plinth module.
Desk height: 107.5 cm (42.32”) Five modules plus a plinth module.
Chest height: 127.1 cm (50.03”) Six modules plus a plinth module.
Max height for pulling out a drawer: 146.7 cm (57-3/4”) Seven modules plus a plinth module.
Eye level: 166.3 cm (65.47”) Eight modules plus a plinth module.
Height of a man: 185.9 cm (73.19”) Nine modules plus a plinth module.
Height of a door: 205.5 cm (80.91”) Ten modules plus a plinth module.
Minimum ceiling height: 225.1 cm (88.62”) Eleven modules plus a plinth module.
The system also used two depths for carcases: 36 cm (14.17”) and 54 cm (21.26”).
The examples shown in “Furniture Designed by Børge Morgensen (Arkitekten Forlag, 1968) are quite pleasing to the eye.
— Christopher Schwarz
O teak!
You delight of clients’ wives,
refuge of architects,
and the dot over the “i” of honoraria.
You fiendishly indestructible and shitty brown.
You are so Asiatic Company-like and so noble
that you cannot even stand being painted in a vibrant color,
so full of virtues that you can only be shown nude
as God, in a moment of genius, created you,
sexless, boring, as costly as virtue itself.
Neither a knot nor a crack on you can make little girls and boys
think that not everything is the same at both ends.
Together with stainless steel and reinforced concrete
you stand as the trinity of the times.
Banks, corporations, and savings and loans worship you.
You are the symbol of all manner of consolidated semi-education,
the discrete advertisement for the suitable height of our tax bracket
and the corresponding excellence of our neighborhood.
Once you were an honorable maritime material,
intended to withstand storm and salt water.
Now you have been raised to the pedestal of taste.
Now even bank customers,
who themselves must pay the price,
fall on their knees before the totem pole of teak.
*
Humble and touching pine,
which can rot in decent fashion,
which must not show its dirty hue at any price,
which modestly wears the painter’s color –
Let us be old fashioned together and out of touch with the times.
Our chance will come again, sooner or later.
— Poul Henningsen (1894-1967), Danish author, architect and critic, written Oct. 28, 1953
“New, new, new, just for the sake of newness, for the sake of the sales’ curve, in order to make people throw away the old things before they have served their time. Not so long ago we looked for a better form, now we only have to find a new one.”
— Poul Henningsen (1894-1967), Danish author, architect and critic