Mid-Century Danish Design: Finn Juhl’s Biography

Not many Danish designers were internationally known during the Mid Century: Finn Juhl was one of them. He was born in 1912 and after his graduation in 1934 at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen he worked for ten years for the Vilhelm Lauritzen’s architect studio.

Finn Juhl studied as architect and never thought to become a furniture designer, that’s why the first pieces he designed were conceived more for a personal use than for the mass-production. Moreover, he was more caring about the ‘outline’ than to the function itself: something revolutionary for the Danish design at the time.

The Pelikan Chair designed in 1939, one of his first furniture project, was exhibited during the Guild Exhibitions -a yearly Cabinetmaker’s Exhibition- and highly criticized because of its organic form far from the Danish furniture tradition of functional objects. However, despite the numerous criticisms Finn Juhl works started to be appreciated abroad throughout the 1940s for the virtuous, radical and organic design clearly inspired by contemporary artists like Alexander Calder and Hans Arp and by natural forms; like the early Pelikan Chair and the Chieftain Chair.

The mix of craft manufacture, care for the details, high quality materials and contemporary art influences made the Finn Juhl’s pieces easy to distinguish thanks to the organic and sculptural forms. The exclusive design caught the US company Baker Furniture attention that mass-produced Juhl’s furniture from the early 50s on; the Baker Sofa is one of the piece he designed for the company.

Furniture a part, Finn Juhl also designed interiors for many exhibitions and apartments including vases for Kay Bojesen, kitchen appliances for the General Electric, rugs for Unika-Vaev and glass accessories for Georg Jensen. The amazing Trusteeship Council Chamber’s interiors he designed, in New York, helped further on his popularity and the ‘Danish Modern Design’ to become internationally known and appreciated.

As in the Scandinavian design tradition, also Finn Juhl used woods for his projects. His particular contribution to the wood-manufacturing was a new Teak’s processing technique thanks to which, for example, he could bend the teak wood obtaining the organic and virtuous forms of his pieces: the ‘Teak Style’ started.

For more than twenty years the Finn Juhl’s works almost disappeared from the market. The revival started in the 80s and is still going on. In 2010, in fact, one of his sofa won the prize as ‘Best Reisue/Sofa design’ during the Wallpaper Design Award.

Finn Juhl and his works influenced many interiors during the mid century. To discover everything about it, check Mid Century Home now!