Biography of Arne Jacobsen

Arne Emil Jacobsen is probably the most famous Danish designer of the Designer of the 20th century. Jacobsen, who was born in Copenhagen on February 11, 1902 and died there on March 24, 1971, was not only Designer, but also an architect and trained stonemason. Jacobsen's designs can be classified as functionalist or Danish modernist and are produced by manufacturers such as &tradition, Fritz Hansen, Georg Jensen, Louis Poulsen and Montana. Today, design objects by Arne Jacobsen are available as licensed originals from premium interior designer TAGWERC.

Odyssey in space

The designer's initials give the AJ lights collection by Louis Poulsen its name. The luminaire family, consisting of AJ Floor, AJ Wall, AJ 50 Wall and AJ Table as well as the pendant light AJ Royal and the wall light AJ Eklipta. The AJ cutlery set, also Arne Jacobsen, by Georg Jensen is also well known, as it plays a supporting role in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the science fiction film classic by director Stanley Kubrick from 1968.

Education and architecture

Arne Jacobsen grew up in middle-class circumstances as the son of a businessman and a bank employee. His father attached great importance to a good education and so, after his apprenticeship as a stonemason, Arne Jacobsen enrolled at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen in 1924 to study architecture, from which he graduated just three years later. In the following years, as an independent architect, he created a number of notable building projects such as the so-called Bellavista Estate with the Bellevue Theater (1932 - 1935), the Skovshoved filling station (1936), Aarhus Town Hall (1942), the Radisson Royal Hotel (1956 - 1960), today the Radisson Collection Hotel - Royal Copenhagen, based on Gordon Bunshaft's Lever House in New York. As part of this building project, Arne Jacobsen designed the armchair Egg, also known as the Egg Chair, and Swan, known as The Swan (both still produced by Fritz Hansen today).

The Dane in Germany

Arne Jacobsen designed four buildings at the invitation of the city for the model housing estate Südliches Hansaviertel in Berlin (1952). In the Great Garden, one of the most important baroque gardens in Europe in Hanover, Arne Jacobsen created a glass foyer, the Arne Jacobsen Foyer (1964), which functions as a connecting corridor between the palace and the gallery building and borders the baroque garden. An administration building for the pharmaceutical company Novo Industrie (now Novo Nordisk) was built in Mainz from 1967 to 1969. For the town of Castrop Rauxel, Arne Jacobsen designed the Forum Europaplatz, an event and congress center in the heart of the town, as well as the town hall. For Südstrand on the Baltic Sea island of Fehmarn, Arne Jacobsen designs a hotel complex consisting of three high-rise buildings.

Jacobsen designs

A number of buildings were begun by Arne Jacobsen during his lifetime but could only be completed after his death. These include the Christianeum, the school complex of an old language grammar school, and the Vattenfall administration building, both in Hamburg. Mainz Town Hall, the Danish Embassy in London and the Danish National Bank building in Copenhagen. In the Hotel Alexandra, the retro hotel in Copenhagen, there is an Arne Jacobsen hotel room, which pays homage to the city's most famous designer son. The Motel One hotel chain uses the Egg Chair in turquoise as its corporate identity (CI) in the lobby of its budget hotels.

Timeless design classics

One of the last furniture designs is a work and dining room table, the so-called DJOB table by Montana, which Arne Jacobsen is said to have created in the year of his death. One of his earliest designs is the Bellevue light series (1928) by &tradition, which is available from TAGWERC in all versions as floor lamp (AJ7), table lamp (AJ8), wall light (AJ9) and two recessed table lamps (AJ10 and AJ11). Together with his former business partner Flemming Lassen, he created the Major Sofa for Sollerod City Hall in 1939, today also produced by &tradition and supplied by TAGWERC as a 2-seater and 3-seater sofa.

Apprenticeship years with Jacobsen

Arne Jacobsen was already a celebrated designer in 1950 Designer when Verner Panton joined Jacobsen's architecture and design studio at the end of his studies. At this time, Jacobsen was designing the Ant, one of his most famous chairs. Panton got to know Jacobsen through his father-in-law Poul Henningsen. Only years later would Panton say about this difficult time for him: "The older I get, the more respect I have for Arne Jacobsen, although I have a different opinion on many things. When you consider all that Arne Jacobsen has achieved in many areas, there is no one in the world who can beat him. Of course, his skill was accompanied by talent, energy, economy and luck. And perhaps it was all a little too clean. But I have never learned as much from anyone as I did from Arne Jacobsen. Including being uncertain and never giving up."