The shoreline of sandy seashores, forests and splendid villas that lies north of Copenhagen is usually known as the Whisky Belt for its prosperous residents, who benefit from the good life over a glass of wonderful spirit (slightly than a pilsner beer). Within the city of Rungsted, there may be one inimitable villa overlooking the Øresund strait, conceived by architect Hanne Kjærholm in 1962 and full of furnishings made by her husband, the esteemed Danish designer Poul Kjærholm.
(Picture credit score: Simon Heger Knudsen )
Identified for his exacting precision and talent to harness the best potential of supplies, Poul Kjærholm occupies a heat place within the hearts of Danish design lovers. The achingly stunning simplicity of his furnishings makes it seem far past its time. Surrounded by these items in Rungsted, the designer’s son Thomas Kjærholm displays: ‘We virtually took it as a right that that is how we dwell.’ On a gray autumn morning, Thomas has generously opened the doorways of his household house. He moved again 12 years in the past and has since restored the villa to the way it appeared within the Sixties, with almost all the identical items of furnishings (although not the unique variations).
One of many oldest is the ‘PK4’ lounge chair designed in 1952, made when Poul had simply graduated from the Danish Faculty of Arts and Crafts in Copenhagen. Conjured up from metal and woven halyard rope, the modern design was facilitated by the welder father of fellow Danish designer Knud Holscher and bought for a minimal price to different college students. The chair was reissued this yr by the inside design model Fritz Hansen, which has lengthy collaborated with the Kjærholm household.
Inside Poul Kjærholm’s design archive
Woven Tahitian straw flooring and vertical wooden cladding are used all through the villa, together with the compact important bed room
(Picture credit score: Simon Heger Knudsen )
The grandson of Fritz Hansen, Søren Hansen, was impressed by Poul Kjærholm’s commencement mission, the ‘PK25’ chair (in any other case often known as the ‘Ingredient’ chair), made out of rope and a single piece of metal. He employed the younger designer to ‘come upwith his personal concepts, but additionally primarily to work as an architect for Arne Jacobsen’. In distinction although to contemporaries like Jacobsen, ‘my father did every little thing himself’, Thomas explains. Moreover, Kjærholm made a relatively restricted variety of designs, which solely provides to their attract at this time.
The ‘PK4’ lounge chair was designed by Poul Kjærholm in 1952 and reissued this yr by Fritz Hansen, which has lengthy collaborated with the Kjærholm household
(Picture credit score: Simon Heger Knudsen )
After a yr with Fritz Hansen, creating such landmark works because the ‘PK0’ shellchair in black-coloured ash, Kjærholm grew pissed off and supposedly requested Hansen to decide on between him and Jacobsen. Following his departure, Kjærholm solid a partnership with the furnishings producer Ejvind Kold Christensen, whom Thomas credit as ‘the one who invented Poul Kjærholm’. It was Kold Christensen that discovered the plot of land in Rungsted, and put in himself two doorways down, making a purposeful buffer in between designer and producer. The 2 households had been shut and as a boy Thomas remembers being invited by Kold Christensen, who was ‘like a grandfather’, to go fishing each Sunday.
The 1961 ‘PK-91’ stool was impressed by an historic Egyptian folding stool relationship again to 1500BC
(Picture credit score: Simon Heger Knudsen )
The forest and sea of Rungsted reminded Hanne and Poul Kjærholm of rural Jutland, the northern peninsula of Denmark the place they each grew up, and the place Poul educated as a cabinetmaker. In his small city, the designer was anticipated to fulfil the function of each cabinetmaker and undertaker as he might make coffins. ‘I feel my father acquired slightly depressed about that. He needed to go additional,’ says Thomas.
The Kjærholms beloved to be so near nature and Thomas remembers that he was perpetually outdoors within the forest. Poul too needed his color palette to stem from nature. One explicit story of household folklore recounts how a consumer requested if the Milan Triennale prize-winning ‘PK22’ chair could possibly be made in inexperienced leather-based, to which Poul replied: ‘Have you ever ever seen a inexperienced cow?’ ‘So, the talk was over!’ Thomas laughs.
(Picture credit score: Simon Heger Knudsen )
One other notable piece, positioned by a window, is the ‘PK15’ – Poul Kjærholm’sfinal chair, which he conceived within the late Nineteen Seventies and was reissued by Fritz Hansen in September 2023. The ‘PK15’ exemplifies his pursuit of readability and important kind,made out of items of steam-bent wooden and French cane. For Kjærholm, the utmost significance of supplies had been ingrained by his cabinetmaker coaching, in addition to a respect for conventional craftsmanship. He didn’t disguise the seams of leather-based or the twists of screws, however markedly celebrated the development of his designs.
‘We don’t have any doorsteps in case you seen,’ Thomas factors out as one among numerous private particulars of the villa’s design. Poul suffered from a limp as one leg was shorter than the opposite, so Hanne designed a home that might enable her husband touse a wheelchair later in life. When his father walked, Thomas says, it appeared as if‘he was dancing’. Then there are the flush doorways that disappear into the partitions and the woven Tahitian straw flooring, bought from Kold Christensen.
(Picture credit score: Simon Heger Knudsen )
The one-storey villa is punctuated by beams and columns that emphasise its symmetrical design. The lounge, which stretches all the width of the home, is split into distinct areas the place the household would possibly collect to eat, examine and chill out. Thomas remembers how his father would curl up on the couch whereas his mom sat cross-legged by the fireside, and he lay beneath the desk.
The villa is testomony to the Kjærholms’ understanding of furnishings and house, and the way one would possibly inform the opposite. By means of Poul’s eyes, the association of furnishings remodeled an area into a spot the place life and relationships might unfold – there isno finer instance than his own residence. He most popular to be referred to as a ‘furnishings architect’ than a designer. ‘It was a finer factor to say I feel, extra exact,’ Thomas suggests, ‘as a result of a designer may be many issues. Structure, that’s extra sculptural.’ Certainly, Poul was impressed by the summary types of sculptors corresponding to Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Isamu Noguchi.
(Picture credit score: Simon Heger Knudsen )
Poul died a number of months after he was recognized with lung most cancers in 1980. A yr later, Kold Christensen bought the manufacturing rights for Kjaerholm’s furnishings to Fritz Hansen. In 2003, Fritz Hansen rolled again its manufacturing of a number of designs, which Thomas determined to provide himself, earlier than the designs had been reacquired together with all the Kjærholm catalogue by Fritz Hansen in 2014.
As we speak, Thomas and his sister Krestine handle the Kjærholm archive and work intently with Fritz Hansen to resolve which items are introduced into manufacturing and which new improvements with supplies and hues are thought of. Not too long ago, this has included marble from the Norwegian city of Fauske, used for a brand new model of the ‘PK54’ eating desk. Thomas and Krestine are additionally educating their very own youngsters in regards to the Kjærholms’ legacy. ‘We’re coaching them to allow them to take over at some point.’
For now, a sense of calm pervades the villa. We’re invited to take a breath, to understand our place inside the Kjærholms’ idyll and the world that surrounds us.
Poul Kjærholm items can be found from Fritz Hansen, fritzhansen.com
The 1952 ‘PK0’ lounge chair is predicated on the sculpturesof Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth
(Picture credit score: Simon Heger Knudsen )
Supply: Wallpaper
