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This very succinct and interesting e-book, on how Danish design and Danish Trendy helped form Nineteen Fifties American design tradition and style, weaves its story across the historical past of two chairs designed in 1949, their origins, strategies of constructing and place throughout the Danish and, particularly, American markets: Finn Juhl’s Chieftain Chair and Hans Wegner’s the Chair (initially referred to as the Spherical Chair).
Among the many most recognisable of Danish chairs, they’re described by Maggie Taft as “emissaries” for the strategic creation of an American export marketplace for a wider vary of Danish furnishings and home objects. So profitable was this technique that, regularly, not solely was Danish manufacturing formed for American customers however, within the US itself, Danish Trendy turned a time period utilized to American-made furnishings and product design.
From 2006 onwards in publications in each Danish and English, together with his 500-page e-book Danish Trendy Furnishings, 1930-2016: The Rise, Decline and Re-Emergence of a Cultural Market Class, the financial historian Per Hansen proposed that the idea of Danish design was consciously invented with a transparent advertising narrative, underpinned by the concept that it was “democratic, social and sincere, created out of a singular sense of moderation and regard for environment and human want”. The creators and drivers of this narrative had been a coordinated community of Danish designers, makers, their organisations and the Danish authorities.
Hansen’s analysis—a significant contribution to design historical past with out which the title beneath overview is unimaginable—was revelatory. He defined that what started as a plan to revive and diversify the Danish financial system within the Nineteen Thirties by exporting to European markets, was solely realised from the late Forties when it targeted on the American market. In Danish Trendy Furnishings, 1930-2016, Hansen devoted an entire chapter to the American story. Whereas maybe Taft might have extra fulsomelyacknowledged Hansen’s work (there are some footnotes), she delves deeper into the important thing position performed by the American market in creating and remodeling the thought of Danish design, shopper responses and copies.
Origin tales
Taft begins her e-book with the origin tales of her two protagonist chairs, putting them throughout the Copenhagen context the place, on the high finish of the market, “craftsmanship was king”. It was members of the Cabinetmakers Guild and sure architects (moderately than the broader Danish furnishings commerce) that championed this concept; together with the export-minded Danish authorities, the division retailer Den Permanente and varied commerce our bodies, they led the push into the US.
With the assistance of the post-war Marshall Plan, the Danish authorities was instrumental in transferring away from import tariffs on woods, particularly Thai teak, in favour of subsidies for Danish cabinetmakers, who had been restricted by an inadequate provide of native timbers. Taft highlights the backstory of the industrial relationship between Denmark and Thailand, which started in 1858. On account of the Danish subsidies, between 1952 and 1957 teak turned the wooden most utilized in and related to Danish furnishings exported to the US.
Taft deftly organises her chapters right into a compelling narrative that explains, in chapter two (“Made in Denmark”), how Juhl’s and Wegner’s chairs had been modified in design and manufacturing method for export, after which (within the case of Juhl’s chair in addition to different furnishings designs) for manufacture within the US. Between 1949 and 1960, the vast majority of Danish factories had beneath ten workers—too few to fulfill the wants of the US market, which consumed at the very least 50% of your entire manufacturing of the brand new Danish Trendy furnishings.
Chapter three (“At Residence with Danish Design”) explores the sellers, tastemakers and customers who promoted Danish design, together with in exhibitions. Particularly fascinating are the motivations of American customers revealed in correspondence with Den Permanente. Extra conventional tastemakers included Edgar Kaufmann Jr, of the Museum of Trendy Artwork in New York; he was an influential champion of Juhl and noticed significant parallels between Danish and American design cultures. “Each are drawn to natural design … [which] blends kind, construction and utility right into a vivid complete,” he wrote. Parallel connections had been noticed by American design writers, notably the Chilly Warfare warrior Elizabeth Gordon, the editor of Home Lovely and a eager admirer of Danish Trendy. For Gordon, each cultures exemplified democracy and thus Danish design was spuriously enlisted into the McCarthy-era struggle in opposition to Communism throughout the sphere of the American house.
The ultimate chapter within the e-book (“Mail Order Danish Trendy”) covers the plagiarising of Danish Trendy furnishings, with Wegner’s the Chair described on the time as “essentially the most stolen-from design on the planet”. Taft argues that the proliferation of copies helped develop the idea of a Danish Trendy type and was instrumental in popularising it. Satirically, by 1968, when the US Federal Commerce Fee banned the “deceptive” use of the phrase Danish for furnishings produced exterior of Denmark (aside from “Danish method” or “Danish type”), copies had finally destroyed the export marketplace for such furnishings. These and different tales in Taft’s e-book make it important for an understanding of post-war Danish and American design.
• Maggie Taft, The Chieftain and the Chair: The Rise of Danish Design in Postwar America, College of Chicago Press, 184pp, 16 color & 36 b/w illustrations, $22.50/£18 (hb), revealed 22 Might
• Christopher Wilk is the keeper of efficiency, furnishings, textiles and trend on the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
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