DANISH FURNITURE DESIGNER AND CABINETMAKER · 1914–2007
Hans J. Wegner
Hans J. Wegner is the master of chairs. He designed more than 500 of them, and the best are still produced by Carl Hansen & Søn, PP Møbler and Fredericia. We sell and reupholster Wegner’s upholstered chairs such as Oculus, the Wing Chair and the Ox Chair.
The cabinetmaker who became a designer
Wegner was born in Tønder in 1914 and trained as a cabinetmaker before attending the School of Arts and Crafts in Copenhagen. He worked for Arne Jacobsen and Erik Møller on Aarhus City Hall and opened his own studio in 1943. His background as a cabinetmaker shows in everything he designed: the joints are visible, the wood is carefully chosen, and the chairs can be taken apart and repaired.
He himself said that a chair is only finished when someone has sat in it. That is why his chairs are comfortable in a way rarely found in design from the same period.
Wood and upholstery
Most people know Wegner for his chairs in solid wood: the Wishbone Chair, the Round Chair and the Peacock Chair. But he also designed upholstered chairs that need an upholsterer who knows them: the Ox Chair from 1960, Oculus from the same year and the Wing Chair, which only went into production at Carl Hansen & Søn in 2006.
The upholstery on these chairs is shaped over a fixed shell or frame, and the cover must be cut to the lines of the chair. That makes them expensive to reupholster at the manufacturer and obvious candidates for a new life with us.
