Between his birth on February 11th 1902 and his death on March 3rd 1971 Arne Jacobsen had a most remarkable life and professional career. He became not only Denmark's most prominent architect and prolific designer but also one of the most well-known functionalists in the world.
Only 37 years before reaching this unique status a Danish newspaper, commenting on the newly finished "Stelling" house, had written that he should be banned from building for life and one of his masterpieces the SAS Royal hotel (1958-1960) in Denmark's capital Copenhagen won on it's inauguration a public competition for "the ugliest building in the city".
To grow from these earlier rejections into the role of a national symbol and an internationally acclaimed architect, Arne Jacobsen had only used his buildings, his furniture, lighting, hardware and fine tableware. Hard work, restless creativity and perseverance in the pursuit of refined detail were probably his most valued tools. He did not engage in the fierce theory-building characteristic for many of his colleagues in the modernist movement, in fact he always showed a healthy distrust of theorizing. "You can always see a thing from two sides, if only one has a little imagination" he said in one of the rare interviews with Anne Wolden Raethinge before his death in 1971. He had spent every active day of his life engaged in a never-ending and meticulous creative process. In fact it was in the creative process he had put all his trust. Although he was known for being uncompromising, he would not put much energy, or later on, not much of his acquired authority, behind a particular or preferred solution. He often choose to go back to the drawing board and create a different and better solution. Within that creative process he did not respect any traditional professional borders. The total quality of the man made environment was his concern. He designed buildings, furniture, (Fritz Hansen) lighting (L.Poulsen), flatware and tableware ( A. Michelsen & Stelton ), textiles (with Jonna Jacobsen), carpets and posters. It is not totally unique but quite remarkable that none of these products needed the support of the others, even when they were designed to complement each other, to be outstanding. In that respect, he is not a predecessor of those architects who, based on a reputation earned by remarkable architectural achievements, complemented their creative output with mediocre product designs. The Munkegaard School furniture, for instance, obviously designed to complement this same school in Gentofte (1952-56) is not just a fulfillment of the modernist wish to design the whole environment, it is also the best school furniture a 10 year old pupil could dream of. It is therefore not surprising that a number of these designs started a successful life on their own. It is no less surprising that some of the furniture is better known and more widely publicized than the buildings they were designed for.
Now, a century after his birth, and with the benefit of a few more years of historical perspective, it seems appropriate to re-visit some of the earlier assessments of the significance of his career within the modern movement. Although he was often criticized for his cool modernism,he is more often seen as the brilliant interpreter of earlier pioneered principles. R. Craig Miller in "Design 1935-1965, What Modern was" goes as far as stating "...He was not, however, an architect of the first rank, for he was basically an adapter, though an extreme skillful and sensitive one, of other artist's concepts...". It almost requires a new definition of what an architect is, to make such a statement credible. Only those who do not believe that architecture also serves a social function, and can be reduced to an artistic statement and measure the quality by this statements originality, would subscribe to it. Yes, Arne Jacobsen applied principles that were already known within the modern movement. In that sense it seems right, but the way in which his architecture and products have put a humane face on modernist principles is very personal. It is an important and original contribution both to modernism and to the specific place Denmark and the Scandinavian countries have in the modern movement. One might in fact argue that much of what the modern movement stands for, would have been lost and simply forgotten if Scandinavian designers and architects like Arne Jacobsen would not have added that humane element to it. Those with vivid and accurate memories of the post war period know how important that recognition by a larger segment of the population was and how instrumental it was in the renewed interest for the roots of the modern movement. The egg chair is a small but clear example of this. It is not just a comfortable chair reduced to a very simple and architectural shape suitable for a large hotel lobby, it is not just a friendly yet readable shape, it also provides the user with a level of visual isolation that witnesses a keen understanding of the need for privacy and warmth in a large semi-public space. This other level of understanding was new and had not been reached by Mies Van der Rohe's Barcelona chair, also designed for a open public building. A similar, distinctive "humane" dimension is recognizable in the Søholm development in Klampenborg (1950-1955) where Arne and Jonna Jacobsen lived. Although the connection with Stuttgart's "Weissenhofsiedlung" seems obvious, the total atmosphere is very different. This kinder approach to functionalism is recognizable in all Arne Jacobsen's buildings and in numerous architectural details like the small platforms reaching safely into the water in St Catherine's College in Oxford (1964-1966): people looking over the water and the courtyard are almost encouraged to look also at each other by the angle of the brick wall. This particular attention to how people use architectural space and enjoy the simple luxury of well thought-out architectural solutions became a vital component for the broadening acceptance of modernism in Denmark.
Thanks to a similar approach by Alvar Aalto in Finland and to some extent by Gunnar Asplund in Sweden, it soon became the signature and the most convincing contribution to functionalism by the Nordic countries. This concern for the quality of life, and the talent to provide it with appropriate space is most certainly one of the elements that convinced Alan Bullock, Master of St Catherine's College and Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford to ask Arne Jacobsen to design the new college, facing strong opposition of the English architectural community, but convinced that the buildings would provide for meaningful and an enjoyable space, not just for a functional one. So, when functionalism came to Denmark with the 1929 building exhibition where Arne Jacobsen joined Flemming Lassen in building the "house of the future", and even more so when he built the beach development at Bellevue with the horse riding hall (1930), the theatre with the adjacent restaurant (1935) and the Bella Vista apartment building (1934), that typical Danish scale and charm was already part of it, and it would develop and become more recognizable with each subsequent project.
Along with this concern with more than strictly functional needs Arne Jacobsen remained a strong believer in the industrial process, not just for products but also for buildings.The projects he left on the drawing board at the time of his death, like the University of Roskilde, witness of this willingness to find quality in industrialized building systems. The first successful attempt to use pre-cast concrete load bearing components was the Rødovre Town hall (1955). The council meeting hall, a well proportioned independent structure with its natural stone facade contrasts with the lightness of the curtain wall of the administrative centre in a formal dialogue that is typical for Arne Jacobsen. He revisited this contrast in both the Toms Chocolate factory in Ballerup (1961) and the head office of the Hamburg Power station (1970).
Much has been written about his understanding of the industrial production process but like other contemporaries this understanding was more symbolic than factual. Both Le Corbusier's "Grand comfort" and Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona chair are difficult to make and most of the detailing of Paul Kjaerholm's furniture has to be made very carefully by hand, and these are just a few examples of a long series of well intended attempts to use an "industrial form language" resulting in products that are on the contrary very challenging to produce industrially. Arne Jacobsen is not always an exception to that rule. As any stainless steel manufacturer will confirm Arne Jacobsen's "Cylinda line" (1957) for Stelton A/S is technically a very challenging collection of products. What looks like a simplification that serves the industrial production, is in fact a very labor intensive process and a major technical achievement. It still is, almost 50 years later. The Vola hardware line, (taps etc.) is without any doubt the finest simplification of the "water providing function" but yet difficult to produce industrially. In his furniture for Fritz Hansen Eftf. and similarly so in his public and industrial buildings he was far more successful in applying industrial technology. The numerous variations on the plywood chair (1952) that challenged the Thonet chairs for the honor of being the best sold chairs in history, are all fine examples of his understanding of mass production. Originally made for the Danish Pharmaceutical company Novo, the "ant" became the start of a whole series of laminated plywood chairs. The double curves that give them the elegance that differentiates them from Eames and Aalto, are not real double curves. The intelligent use of narrower transitions that create the effect of double curves demonstrates a unique understanding of the material and the process motivated by the willingness to provide the user with affordable alternatives. From the very early years of his highly productive career he particularly enjoyed architectural competitions. He was not only a participant but a great number of his finest works were the result of winning these competitions. It started with a silver medal won in Paris for an early design of a chair. Bellevue was also an early one, and so was the Århus town hall and the town halls of Søllerød (1940-42) and Rødovre. He won the competition for the office Buildings for the Hamburg Power station (1970) and the National Bank of Denmark in Copenhagen (1971). Another red line throughout his career are his many collaborations. Starting with Flemming Lassen with whom he designed the "house of the future", and later Søllerød town hall. Erik Møller, his partner in the building of the Town Hall of Århus in Jutland, where the furniture designer Hans Wegner got his first important job. His wife Jonna with whom he designed textiles during their stay in Southern Sweden where they took refuge in 1943 from the persecution of Jews that had reached Denmark during the Second World War. With Folmer Anderssen a gifted engineer he designed a never built restaurant for the Herrenhausen Schlott park in Hanover(1964) and a swimming stadium for Lyngby. Both among the most daring constructions of Arne Jacobsen's rich career. The list of important collaborators concludes with Otto Weitling, his associate and later partner in Hamburg, Landskrona, Castrop-Rauxel and the National Bank of Denmark.
From his early years at a Naerum boarding school and later the "Skolen for Brugkunst" where he got a mason education and during his days under Kay Fisker and Kaj Gottlob at the "Kongliga Danske Kunstakademi" up to his last days he loved to "see things grow." This love also manifested itself in a life-long interest for flowers and plants. His garden in the Søholm development was something of a botanical garden, and he loved painting water colors especially of flowers and plants. But most of all it expressed itself in the creative process. Arne Jacobsen never subscribed to the kind of stubborn dogmatism that was Le Corbusier's signature, he explored, started with small insignificant sketches, passed through moments of doubt and the feeling that he lacked the skills, but he loved the process, overcame doubt by work "...fortunately not by inspiration..." he ones said. Although the process started with solving practical and functional problems, he never believed in the over-simplification of Sullivan's "Form follows function" that became fashionable in pre-war Germany. He never accepted that when something was practical and functional it was beautiful as well. Function was only part of a process in which many functional solutions were to be compared and subsequently selected. To Arne Jacobsen a functional building was not architecture, it could become architecture...and if it did so, it became art.
The Egg Chair was designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1958 in his typical style, where there was no fear of pushing the material to its limit, and often using entirely new materials to make his designs come true. The Egg Chair is a strikingly organically shaped upholstered seat on slender metal bases. The Egg was designed as a couch also - though the actual piece was thought to be a figment of someone's imagination. But only a handful of Egg-couches have ever been made. A few were made for the Radisson Hotel, and a few years back, some were made as a "special edition" couch. The Egg chair was featured in the movie Men in Black and briefly seen in Back to the Future II, as well as shown in a promotional poster for Chicken Little as a reference to Men in Black.
The Egg Chair was designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1958 in his typical style, where there was no fear of pushing the material to its limit, and often using entirely new materials to make his designs come true.
The Egg Chair is a strikingly organically shaped upholstered seat on slender metal bases.
The Egg was designed as a couch also - though the actual piece was thought to be a figment of someone's imagination. But only a handful of Egg-couches have ever been made. A few were made for the Radisson Hotel, and a few years back, some were made as a "special edition" couch.
The Egg chair was featured in the movie Men in Black and briefly seen in Back to the Future II, as well as shown in a promotional poster for Chicken Little as a reference to Men in Black.