DANISH ARCHITECT AND DESIGNER · 1902–1971
Arne Jacobsen
Arne Jacobsen is the Danish designer most people know, and the one we have the most furniture by. The Series 7, the Swan and the Egg are in our stores every day, used and newly reupholstered, and they are still the chairs we most often get in for reupholstery.
The architect who designed everything
Arne Jacobsen was born in Copenhagen in 1902 and graduated from the Royal Danish Academy’s School of Architecture in 1927. He was a functionalist with a sure eye for form, and he liked to design everything in a building: the façade, the door handles, the cutlery and the chairs. The SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen from 1960 is the best-known example. For it he designed both the Swan and the Egg.
Jacobsen was not trained as a furniture designer, but his chairs became his most widespread works. The collaboration with Fritz Hansen began in earnest with the Ant in 1952 and continued until his death in 1971.
From the Ant to the Series 7
The Ant, model 3100, was the first chair with a shell of moulded veneer in which seat and back were formed in one piece. It was intended for the canteen at Novo and had three legs. The Series 7, model 3107, from 1955 got a wider back and four legs and became the best-selling Danish chair ever. The Grand Prix from 1957 and the Seagull from 1970 are based on the same principle.
The shells last for decades while the cover wears. That is why Jacobsen’s chairs are so well suited to reuse: a used shell with a new cover is in effect a new chair for less than half the price.
The Swan and the Egg
For the hotel’s lobby and foyer Jacobsen designed two upholstered shell chairs on a swivel base in 1958: the Swan, model 3320, without a single straight line, and the Egg, model 3316, with the high shell that closes around the person sitting in it. Both were technically innovative, because the shell was moulded in foam and upholstered all the way round.
Reupholstering the Swan and the Egg is precision work, because the cover has to follow the curves without folds. It is one of the things our workshop is proudest of.
