The furniture designer Hans J Wegner passed away in 2007. Hans was born in 1914 in Tonger, Denmark and became a well known figure and successful graduate of the Danish Modern School of Design. His style was using simple and clean lines that worked together to create beautiful and unobtrusive furniture (möbler).
Hans J Wegner started his career as a woodworker. Unfortunately, he was called to serve his country. He continued his training at a school that specialized in technical skills. Then he became a student at the Copenhagen Architectural Academy as well as the School of Arts and Crafts for additional training. Later, he studied with the masters Erik Moller and Arne Jacobsen.
Designing chairs as a work of art and a comfortable piece of furniture was his area of expertise. He believed that a chair should look good from every angle. Also, he felt it should be viewed without a front or back but instead with one continuous movement around the chair. He liked his chairs to have a simplicity and sophistication, but used a variety of materials and shapes to design the pieces.
He did not stop at basic chairs, though, going in to more complex designs like the ‘peacock’ style for competitions as well as some designs for tables, beds, and cabinets. He also created a valet chair, he used himself to design the chair to make certain that it both looked good and did the job it was intended for. He is also considered, along with his daughter, to be the inventor of the pole light, which came around in the 1970’s.
Chairs are what Hans J Wegner is best known for rather than his other furniture (wegner möbler) he had designed, especially wegner ch 25 (or Chair 25) which was created in 1950. He designed four chairs with woven style seats for Carl Hansen and Son; however this was the only one with rope weaving in the seat and the back. It is also uniquely engineered with the back legs are angled and the load bearing front legs are straight. This lounge chair is much more stable than other chairs of that type that have been constructed.
Chair 25 was designed with the use of several different woods, and had a paper rope for the seat and the back of the chair. Also interesting about the design is the side of the seat, which is made from one piece that curves and becomes the back legs. Often Chair 25 is grouped with wicker furniture (möbler), as some consider it to look wicker in style, but Wegner’s design is in a league apart from flimsy wicker furnishings.
Catalogue names were given to Hans J Wegner’s work instead of design names. The PP203, for example, was an item seen by millions when used by television networks during the famous Kennedy-Nikon debates of 1960. The PP203 was chosen for its simple and clean lines, as well as being comfortable.
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Hans J. Wegner was a famous Danish furniture (mobler) designer who grew to be the most famous and successful member of the Danish Modern school of design. He is most famous for his wegner ch25, or Chair 25, a simple, elegant and stable chair in which the back legs are angled and the load bearing front legs are straight. Interestingly enough, Hans Wegner did not give his designs names, only numbers. His designs were so popular that a number of his chairs were even used in the Kennedy-Nixon election debates in 1960.
Tags: ch 25, danska möbler, fåtölj, hans j wegner, heminredning, inredning, stol
