Hans Wegner
Hans Jørgensen Wegner was a Danish furniture designer. His work, along with a concerted effort from several of his manufacturers, contributed to the international popularity of mid-century Danish design. His style is often described as Organic Functionality, a modernist school with emphasis on functionality. This school of thought arose primarily in Scandinavian countries with contributions by Poul Henningsen, Alvar Aalto, and Arne Jacobsen.
Wegner has been referred to as the "King of Chairs" for his proliferated work designing seating. In his lifetime he designed over 500 different chairs, over 100 of which were put into mass production and many of which have become recognisable design icons.
Wegner received several major design prizes in his lifetime, from the Lunning Prize in 1951 and the Grand Prix of the Milan Triennale in the same year, to the Prince Eugen Medal in Sweden and the Danish Eckersberg Medal. In 1969, he was made honorary Royal designer for industry by the Royal Society of Arts in London.
Biography
Early life and education
Wegner was born to cobbler Peter Mathiesen Wegner and Nicoline Lausen on Smedegade 12 in Tønder. At an early age, Wegner showed interest in craft and could draw and create paper cuttings before he learned to walk. At home, Wegner was drawn to woodcarving and created wood sculptures based on Royal Copenhagen figurines he saw at the Tønder Museum.At the age of 14, he worked as a child apprentice to master cabinetmaker H. F. Stahlberg. He soon discovered he had a feeling for wood and developed an affinity towards the material. At the age of 15, he made his first chair. Finishing his apprenticeship at 17, he crafted a lady's desk as part of his journeyman's test and remained employed in the workshop before joining the army.
During the army, he first saw the exhibition of the Copenhagen Cabinetmakers' Guild in 1935. The exhibits were a laboratory for experimentation between Master Cabinetmakers and the best architects of the time. These exhibits gave Wegner a first-hand experience of what the combination of workmanship and design could produce. Wegner decided to become a designer with the aim of producing and selling his furniture.
Wegner realized his skills needed improvement if he wished to fulfill his dream of opening his own workshop. After the military, Wegner took a 2.5 month cabinetmaking course at the Danish Technological Institute. Subsequently, he attended the School of Arts and Crafts' carpentry program located within the Danish Museum of Art & Design in Copenhagen. Wegner was led by the instruction of Orla Mølgaard-Nielsen, a student from Klint's school, and he was strongly influenced by functionalism. Wegner garnered attention at school from his teachers for his developed drawing skills. His painting teacher tried to convince him to pursue a career as a portrait painter.
He participated at his first Cabinetmakers' Guild exhibition in 1938, where he presented the Stangerup Chair – named after the person who purchased it.
Early career in Aarhus
In 1938, Wegner took a one-year leave from his studies to work on the Aarhus City Hall project on the recommendation of his teacher. Arne Jacobsen and Erik Møller had won a bid to design the Aarhus City Hall and employed Wegner to create the furniture. However, World War II caused delays in the City Hall project and he was first assigned to work on the under Møller and Flemming Lassen. Today, the library displays early photos of Wegner's contributions to the library as well as a dedicated to the historic design. While the library was well-received and Møller and Lassen were awarded the Eckersberg Medal, Wegner's contributions weren't as widely publicized at the time. From 1939–1942, Wegner worked on the Aarhus City Hall project and was responsible for all the furnishings. Wegner began working on three lines of modular office furniture for Planmøbler while working on the City Hall. Some of the Planmøbler furniture was used in the office wings of the City Hall. In 1940, Wegner made what could be called the two most pivotal relationships in his life. The first one was a personal relationship. He met Inga Helbo, a secretary in Jacobsen's office, and they were married on 9 November 1940. The second relationship was professional. Orla Mølgaard-Nielsen played another vital role in Wegner's life by connecting him with master cabinetmaker Johannes Hansen.After finishing the Aarhus City Hall project, Wegner was unable to return to Copenhagen due to travel restrictions during Nazi occupation. Wegner never did return to school to complete the carpentry program and, as a result, he never received instruction from the "father of Danish modern furniture design" Kaare Klint. He continued to work for Jacobsen until 1943 when he opened an independent studio in Aarhus. He designed for Mikael Laursen during this time. He was later employed by his classmate Børge Mogensen, who was the head of furniture design for FDB Møbler.
In 1944, Wegner created the Peter's Chair. Wegner was looking for a christening gift for Børge Mogensen's son, Peter, but he was unable to find one because resources were limited under Nazi occupation. Instead, Wegner designed a children's chair himself. The chair was composed of four pieces that fit together like a three-dimensional puzzle, without the need for any adhesive or fasteners. Impressed with the design, Mogensen put the chair into production and sold it at FDB. The chair and an accompanying table that Wegner later designed are still in production today under Carl Hansen & Søn.
For Johannes Hansen's booth in the 1944 Cabinetmakers' Guild exhibition, Wegner created what might be considered his most decorative and most laborious piece: the Fish Cabinet. The exterior of the cabinet followed Kaare Klint's strict functional style with a rational geometric shape and little decorative elements. The interior, however, is an elaborate display of an underwater scene. Due to its technically demanding intarsia design, Johannes Hansen would not agree to produce the cabinet. Wegner decided to produce it himself using a pocket knife, which took three weeks to assemble all of the roughly 3,000 pieces of wood.
Wegner would only complete a few items for FDB Møbler before he was recruited by one of FDB's subcontractors, Fritz Hansen. He created the China Chair series for Fritz Hansen in 1944. While living in Aarhus, Wegner spent much of his time at the library where he learned about different furniture movements and styles. He saw a Chinese chair in a book by Ole Wanscher that served as inspiration for this chair series. Two of the four China Chairs would go into production. Image:Hans Wegner chair in Pompidou, Paris.jpg|thumb|Dolphin lounge chair in the Centre Pompidou, Paris |150x150px
Return to Copenhagen and international success
Wegner returned to Copenhagen in 1946 where he accepted a teaching position at the Danish School of Arts and Crafts at Mølgaard-Nielsen's suggestion. Wegner also worked for Palle Suenson's studio while teaching, where he was primarily responsible for renovating and designing furniture for the M/S Venus, a ship which had been damaged by the Germans during the occupation.In 1947, Wegner designed the Peacock Chair for Johannes Hansen.Wegner began to experiment with molded plywood in 1948. Plywood had become popularized as a furniture material by the Eames and Alvar Alto and many designers were drawn to use this new lamination technology. That year, he submitted designs for a plywood chair in the MoMA's International Competition for Low Cost Furniture Design. His first shell chair as well as a bench version went into production for Fritz Hansen that same year.
Wegner's two most notable works, the Round Chair and the Wishbone chair, both came in 1949. That year, Wegner presented three chairs for the annual exhibition of the Copenhagen Cabinetmakers' Guild while employed by Johannes Hansen: a three-part plywood shell chair, the Folding Chair, and the Round Chair. The Danish press that attended the event initially paid attention to the tripartite chair. While the tripartite chair had captured the attention of the Danish press, American journalists attended the event for the first time and were drawn to the Round Chair. The American journalists shared the news of this chair back home and it became was the subject of much attention internationally. The American magazine Interiors featured the chair in their piece on the event and christened it "most beautiful chair in the world." This was the first coverage of Danish Modern in the American press.
That same year, Wegner also created the Wishbone Chair. Carl Hansen & Søn commissioned Wegner to create a chair that was both high quality and able to be mass produced. Wegner presented 4 chairs designs for Carl Hansen: CH22, CH23, the Wishbone Chair, and CH25. While all the chairs went into production the following year, the Wishbone Chair became his greatest commercial success and has remained in continuous production.
In 1951, Ejvind Kold Kristensen created Salesco A/S, a company that exclusively promoted Wegner's work both domestically and abroad. Seeing the large potential for commercial success abroad, Salesco was a partnership between five of Wegner's preferred manufacturers, each with their own specialty, that would benefit from the shared marketing and sales resources to bring Wegner's works to more customers. The five manufacturers were Ry Møbler made bookcases, desks, and bulky items; A.P. Stolen made large upholstered furniture; Getama made furniture with loose cushions; Andreas Tuck made tables; and Carl Hansen & Søn made chairs. The company would allow Wegner to produce works across many factories at mass production and not be dependent on annual exhibits to market his works. With this centralized business, international purchasers only needed to visit a single showroom on Rygårds Alle in Copenhagen to see all of Wegner's Salesco collection. This organization made in possible for Wegner's work to proliferate without the designer having to worry about the production and export networks.
In 1951, Wegner won the inaugural Lunning Prize along with Finnish designer Tapio Wirkkala. The prize money allowed Wegner and his wife to take a three-month study tour to the United States and Mexico. The couple took the trip in 1953 after their two daughters were old enough to stay with their grandparents. Wegner witnessed the industrialized furniture production of the US but preferred to adhere to Denmark's traditional methods and rejected multiple offers, including one from Raymond Loewy, to move his furniture production to the US. Wegner stayed with Edgar Kaufmann Jr. at Fallingwater during the trip.
In 1959, Frederik Lunning hosted a retrospective of Wegner's work at Georg Jensen in New York.
Ten years after its initial release, the Round Chair became the subject to even greater attention and more accolades when chosen for the seating of the first televised U.S. presidential debate between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy on 26 September 1960.
From 1962–1963, Wegner works with architects Allan Jessen and Arne Karlsen on designing his family home and design studio in Gentofte.