By the time he died in 1980,
Poul Kjærholm had been key in redefining modern furniture in Denmark for over 30 years. No wonder then, that Denmark thought it high time for his work to be showcased in a complete and coherent manner. And the Danes have come in hordes to the
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art to see his work on display. Originally, the exhibit was to have been taken down by mid-September, but due to popularity the show was extended. Luckily for us, it was still on when
lifeiscarbon® visited the show earlier this month.
The retrospective shows all phases of Kjærholm’s work including original sketches, models, prototypes, and many of the classics that followers of design around the world know and love. And for those of us who grew up in the Scandinavian countries in the 60s and 70s, his pieces have a strangely nostalgic aura about them whilst at the same time they still have a contemporary design appeal.
The arrangement of the Kjærholm’s work into 'settings' lets one appreciate the pieces as part of a room with the function they were originally intended to serve. In a separate room, there is a showing of a video where Kjærholm himself explains how his designs developed into the forms that made them classics.
Recognizing his coffee tables or the PK24 balancing lounge chair from the homes we visited in our childhood, was intriguing. But stepping into spaces designed by this meticulous designer gives a completely different insight into how he intended his designs to function in public and private spaces.
For lifeiscarbon®, one of the highlights of the exhibition was an original scale model built by Kjærholm to show his design for the Danish pavilion at an Expo in the 60s. He designed the entire space, from lighting fixtures to wall decorations and the positioning of the elements in the pavilion. And of course the furniture.
In addition to many Danish embassies around the world, Kjærholm was more that once invited to design furniture for public areas, one of which was the lobby at
JFK Memorial Center in Washington DC. Interesting sketches and models of the furniture, workspaces, positioning of the furniture for this room leave no doubt, this was a dedicated man with a love for clarity, perfection and detail.
Most of his furniture was initially produced by his friend E. Kold Christensen in Hellerup, Denmark but since 1982 a wide selection of those products have been produced by Fritz Hansen. However, when in 2003 Fritz Hansen declared that they were to end production of some of Poul Kjærholm's coffee tables, his son Thomas set up Kjærholm Production in order to continue to manufacture his father's designs.
The exhibition at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art may well be over but Kjærholm's designs are in the permanent collection of MoMA in New York, the V&A in London and other museum collections in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Germany.
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
MoMA
V&A
Kjærholm Production
Fritz Hansen
PK 61 Table
PK22 Chair
PK 24 Chair
PK 61 Table
PK22 Chair
PK 24 Chair
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