Arne Jacobsen

Arne Jacobsen (1902-1971) is the most celebrated post-war Danish designer and architect. He graduated from the School of Applied Arts in 1924 and from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied architecture, in 1927. Arne Jacobsen worked actively both as an architect and as a designer. 

His most famous project was the Royal Hotel in Copenhagen (1956-1960), for which he designed every detail from textiles and lamps to cutlery and furniture. The AJ lamps, designed for the Royal Hotel and manufactured by Louis Poulsen, are an example of streamlined and elegant design. Also the cutlery designed for the Royal Hotel, and produced by Georg Jensen, represents a stylish design that is still today much praised and be-loved. Also the famous Egg and Swan chairs were designed for the Royal Hotel, and in particular for its lobby and lounge areas. As often happened with Arne Jacobsen’s designs, they were initially realized for a certain project and later on put into serial production – and the same happened for the AJ lamps, the cutlery and the furniture he designed for the Royal Hotel. This project was extremely important for the architect and designer because he could finally put his theories of integrated design and architecture into practice, designing every element of the hotel building as well as the furniture. Arne Jacobsen is well-known also for the Cylinda Line range, designed for Stelton in 1967. Since the very beginning the range has been an undisputed icon of Scandinavian design and today the range – which includes several pieces in satinpolished stainless steel, such as a tea pot, a coffee pot, a jug, a sugar bowl and also accessories for the home bar like an ice bucket, a martini mixer, a cocktail shaker, etc. – is part of numerous permanent collections in design museums all over the world. Arne Jacobsen received many prestigious awards for his designs.