Wegner and Jacobsen – two paths for Danish design

Hans J. Wegner was a trained joiner and took solid wood and craftsmanship as his starting point, with chairs such as the Wishbone Chair of 1950. Arne Jacobsen was an architect and took industry and the whole as his starting point, with moulded veneer in the Ant and the Series 7 and foam in the Egg for the SAS Royal Hotel. Both belong to Danish Modern after the Second World War, but they show two different paths.

Facts

The joiner and the architect

Hans J. Wegner grew up in Tønder in southern Jutland and was apprenticed as a joiner before continuing his training in Copenhagen. He designed over 500 chairs, and he thought like a joiner: in solid wood, joints and the work of the hands. His models were often older chairs, such as Chinese chairs of the Ming dynasty and English stick chairs, which he pared down and remade.

Arne Jacobsen was an architect and thought in wholes. He designed buildings and shaped what was to go in them, from chairs and lamps to cutlery. He took the materials and methods of industry as his starting point and had the furniture made in large series. Both belong to the era of Danish Modern, but they came to it from different directions.

Wegner: the chair as joinery

The Wishbone Chair of 1950 is Wegner’s best seller. The crest rail is bent in one piece and also carries the arms, the splat is shaped like a Y, and the seat is woven by hand from paper cord. It is made by Carl Hansen & Søn in Odense and has been produced without interruption since 1950. The Chair of 1949 became world-famous when it was used in the television debate between Kennedy and Nixon in 1960.

Wegner worked with several joinery workshops and manufacturers and tried out new types all his life, but the construction was always visible. The joints are carefully shaped, the edges softly rounded and the wood treated with oil or soap, so that the grain shows. The English Windsor chair is one of the old types that he took up and gave new proportions.

Jacobsen: the chair as an industrial product

Jacobsen’s Ant of 1952 was made by Fritz Hansen with seat and back in a single piece of moulded veneer on thin legs of steel tube. The chair was light, could be stacked and could be made in large series, and it is in the art section’s collection. The Series 7 of 1955 became one of the best-selling chairs in the world. Fritz Hansen had worked early with bentwood, the same technique that made Thonet’s chair no. 14 possible.

For the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen Jacobsen designed both the building and the interior. The Egg and the Swan of 1958 have a shell of foam, upholstered in fabric or leather, on a swivel base of aluminium. Here there is no visible joint at all; the form is modelled like a sculpture.

Material and method

The difference is clearest in the material. Wegner’s chairs are of solid oak, beech, ash or teak, with seats of paper cord or leather and joints that can be seen. Jacobsen’s are moulded veneer, steel tube and foam, with smooth surfaces and concealed fixings. One is the joiner’s furniture, the other industry’s.

It also shows in how they are made. A Wishbone Chair requires many operations by hand, and the seat is woven from well over a hundred metres of cord. An Ant consists of few parts that are pressed and assembled. The diagram of the parts of the chair further down helps you see where the construction lies.

What they have in common

Yet they belong together. Wegner came out of the tradition that Kaare Klint had built up in Copenhagen, with respect for older types and the measure of man, and Jacobsen shared the aim of making good furniture for everyday life. Both worked closely with their manufacturers, and their classics are still made by the same companies. The period before them is described under Klint and the interwar years.

Danish Modern became a household term in the United States and the rest of the world in the 1950s, and both Wegner’s and Jacobsen’s chairs became part of that image. Other Danish designers from the same time, such as Finn Juhl and Poul Henningsen, are found in the guide to famous Danish designers, and the Nordic background in the guide to Scandinavian design.

What to look for: who made the chair?

Turn the chair over. Beneath the seat there is often the maker’s brand, stamp or label, sometimes with a date or a code. Visible joints in solid wood and a seat of paper cord point to Wegner and his manufacturers; moulded veneer on steel legs or an upholstered shell on a swivel base point to Jacobsen and Fritz Hansen.

Both are much copied. Look, therefore, at the details: a Wishbone Chair should have an even, tight weave and a crest rail bent in one piece, and an Ant a shell of veneer with even layers at the edge. More about the designers can be found under Hans J. Wegner and Arne Jacobsen.

How to recognise it

Exercise

A chair has seat and back in one piece of moulded veneer on thin steel legs and can be stacked. Whose way of working does it recall?