Designmuseum, Copenhagen

This is likely our last post on our visit to Copenhagen.

Scandinavian design is very well respected, especially furniture, think Swedish Ikea – and at the high end, see our post on Illums Boligus.

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Designmuseum Danmark is Denmark’s largest museum for Danish and international design and a central exhibition forum for industrial design and applied arts in Scandinavia.

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The museum was founded in 1890 and since 1926, it has been housed in one of Copenhagen’s finest rococo buildings, the former King Frederik’s Hospital.

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The museum garden, the Grønnegård, serves as a performance space in the summer.

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According to the museum’s pamphlet, “Danish designers have always been more engaged in finding practical shapes that can enhance the utility and aesthetics of existing objects for everyday use, than in revolutionizing society with utopian ideas and theoretic artistic manifests.”

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Grete Jalk (1920-2006) Sløjfestolen, the Bow Chair – 1963

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Not much of a real chair but at least recognizable as one.

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The library at Designmuseum Danmark is the largest in Scandinavia in the field of design and the applied arts.

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In addition to books, the library acquires numerous periodicals and its use is free and open for everyone. It was a very comfortable and nice place to read.

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“Users of the library include craftsmen and women, designers, students and researchers from design schools, universities and museums, pupils from technical schools, set-designers, private collectors and dealers, conservators as well as people with a general interest in the field.”

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Piano by Danish design legend – Poul Henningsen

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We had lunch at the museum café –  ‘Klint’.

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The exhibitions are organized by periods.

designmuseum-15Danish modern and Pop

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There was a special section dedicated to one of their best known designer – Arne Jacobsen.

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His designs are very much in daily use all over Copenhagen.

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There was a temporary exhibition about toys and games as well as clothings for children …

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…, furniture for the nursery and graphics for education.
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All in all, it was a very nice museum. And about the right size for roaming in one afternoon.

 

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