Designed for Life : Denmark’s Design Heritage

In brief, the basics are simple, functional and elegant, all underpinned by a respect for craftsmanship, a desire for equality, love of nature and ultimately, a goal to support quality of life.

Take a closer look and you’ll see how these key ideas thread through Danish design in all its many forms. The focus is set on simplicity, sustainability, and the beauty of daily life and on solutions and processes, that work well, last long, look good, and help make the world a better place too.

Take a Seat

In the 1950s, a number of progressive and organic modernist furniture designers – Hans J. Wegner, Børge Mogensen, Poul Kjærholm, and Poul Henningsen – really made ‘Danish Design’ a household term worldwide. Most famous of them all is Danish designer and architect Arne Jacobsen, the creator of the iconic Swan and Egg chairs, that are still manufactured by and remain a bestseller of Republic of Fritz Hansen. It has become a classic of Mid-Century Modern design, and beloved around the world. 

Interior design in Denmark is characterised by mood lighting, candles, textured soft furnishings, and an abundance of natural colours. As with all the Danish design traditions, craftsmanship, quality and functionality are key: pieces are designed for humans and intended to last the test of time, both in style and durability. Modern twists on the style come via sustainable yet traditional Danish designs of Takt’s furniture, Kvadrat’s colourful and contemporary textiles, and Helle Mardahl, whose shapely candy-coloured glassware was awarded Elle Décor International’s tableware of the year 2024.

A Pavilion Made of Chairs

We’re not done with designing chairs: just take our Denmark Pavilion as an example. A fully recyclable event pavilion, it is created from 600 chairs made from recycled Carlsberg kegs, old fishing nets, and discarded wood. Initially intended for The Denmark Pavilion during the Tokyo Olympics 2020, the chairs ended on quite a different journey thanks to COVID-19 and have since offered literal seats at the table of New York Climate Week, Milan Design Week and Roskilde Festival. And now, you can witness the chairs returning to their original purpose, as the foundation of The Denmark Pavilion in Paris 2024. After the Olympic Games, they will find a new home at the Fondation Danoise – a base for Danish students and researchers, offering a unique combination of Danish hygge and cosmopolitan diversity in the heart of Paris.

The interior and exhibition architecture has been created by Copenhagen-based architects BRIQ, along with the concept and content creation, while the structure was designed by Danish architects Lendager Group, who specialise in sustainable architecture and urban planning.

Design Creates Culture

Another of Denmark’s key design exports is architecture. Copenhagen is the current World Architecture Capital, a title given by UNESCO for its human-centred, sustainable focus. Just a couple of examples of its unique architectural style are Urban Rigger, a set of 72 floating container apartments built by Bjarke Ingels Group in Copenhagen, and Living Places. Urban Rigger was created as an alternative to traditional buildings on land in response to the shortage of affordable housing in our cities; Living Places Copenhagen is a collection of seven prototype houses that show that it is possible and affordable to create sustainable and beautiful buildings with a lower-than-average CO2 footprint.

Finally, because Danish designers like to add a sense of play wherever they can, its playground architects Monstrum are known the world over for its outrageously artistic and fun playground designs, playscapes that could be entire castles, gigantic peacocks or whales, designed to promote imaginative play in children of all ages. We’ve also got a ski slope on top of a waste management building, Copenhill, which tell a story of how modern municipal buildings can be so clean that they can co-exist with leisure spaces. Urban planning has long been a strong point of Denmark’s architects, and this idea shapes a future where cities don’t have to hide municipal buildings on the outskirts.