Finn Juhl

Finn Juhl (born January 30, 1912 in Frederiksberg , † May 17, 1989 in Ordrup ) was a Danish designer . He has significantly influenced Scandinavian design and was one of the first to receive international recognition.

Portrait of Finn Juhl (photographer unknown)

Live and act

Despite resistance from his father, Finn Juhl became interested in art history from an early age. In the end, however, he was persuaded to study architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen . Finn Juhl studied from 1930 to 1934, and then found a permanent position with Vilhelm Lauritzen , the leading architect of Danish modernism. In the course of this activity he received the CF Hansen Medal in 1944 . In 1945 he started teaching at the Copenhagen School of Interior Design and founded his own office for furniture and interior design. As early as 1937 he had started to design furniture in collaboration with Niels Vodder and caused a stir in cabinetmaking circles. Throughout his life, Juhl emphasized again and again that he had learned to design furniture himself. Since he was not in the tradition of Kaare Klint , he met with resistance in Denmark for a long time. In 1948, the American architect and author Edgar Kaufmann Jr. - the son of Edgar J. Kaufmann - presented Juhl's work extensively in an article in Interiors magazine . This marked the beginning of the Dane's triumphant advance in the USA. Three years later, Finn Juhl made two dozen pieces of furniture for an exhibition in Chicago. The American company Baker Furniture then produced Juhl's furniture industrially. In 1950, at the age of 38, he took over the design of a boardroom - the Trusteeship Council Chamber - of the UN headquarters in New York.

In 1954 and 1957 he took part in the Triennale in Milan, where he received several awards. In the 1950s and 1960s, Finn Juhl designed numerous interiors , including the Danish embassy in Washington, DC, as well as offices and the interior of a SAS aircraft . His style not only influenced Scandinavian design, e.g. B. at Peter Hvidt, but on the worldwide success of Danish interior design. With its abstract, organic lines, Juhl's sofa and chair designs resemble modern sculptures, for which he was once inspired by works by Henry Moore , Hans Arps , Barbara Hepworth and Erik Thommesen .

Even after his death in 1989, the interest in Juhl's designs remained, although its design-historical significance had been forgotten in the meantime. In 2012 Juhl was honored with a traveling exhibition - The Universe of Finn Juhl - on his 100th birthday. The Design Museum in Ghent dedicated a solo exhibition to Juhl in 2014. The first copies of his legendary Chieftain designs achieved sales of up to six figures at auctions, setting new auction records in the area of ​​Scandinavian mid-century design. The prices for licensed reproductions of the 2012 Danish Design Award chair have risen in a similar manner. His designs can now be found in various museum collections, including those of MoMa , V&A and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston .

The house he designed himself in 1942 - a simple, right-angled bungalow made of whitewashed brick - in Charlottenlund , north of Copenhagen, can now be viewed as part of Ordrupgaard . The house can also be visited virtually in a 3D view mode using Google Maps . In Takayama , Japan , in Gifu , the furniture manufacturer Kitani built a replica of the house, which has been accessible as the Finn Juhl Art Museum Club since 2012 .

In 2015, the artist Danh Vo included pieces of furniture by Juhl in his works of art as part of his exhibition mothertongue in the Danish pavilion at the Venice Biennale .

Finn Juhl's house, now a museum

The interior of the Juhl residential building with the NV45 chairs (right) and the NV44 model (left)

The trustee council , renovated in 2011 , equipped with the FJ51 chair

Works

Furniture by Finn Juhl in the Design Museum in Copenhagen : the Chieftain sofa (center) and his Reading Chair designed in 1953 (right)

The FJ sideboard with the colored drawer element is a nod to Goethe's color theory

The “chief's chair”, as Finn Juhl called it when asked by a journalist in 1949, after King Frederick had sat on it as a test during a furniture exhibition and she wanted to know whether he would now call it “king's chair”. Juhl himself only spoke of the “big chair”.

Furniture

• Pelikan chair (1940)
• FJ41 (1941)
• NV44 chair (1944)
• NV45 chair (1945)
• FJ46 chair (1946)
• BO64 chair (1946)
• O59 chair (1946)
• FJ48 chair (1948)
• Egyptian chair (1949)
• FJ49A also known as the Chieftain Chair (1949)
• Judas table (1946)
• BO98 chair (1952)
• FD137 also known as the Japanese Chair (1953)
• FJ53 chair (1953)
• BO101 chair (1953)
• FJ55 chair (1955)
• FD136 chair (1958)
• BO62 chair (1962)
• FD152 chair (1962)

Buildings and interiors

• Bing & Grøndahl branch , Amiagrav , Copenhagen (1946)
• Meeting room of the UN Trust Council , New York (1951–52)
• Single-family house, Nakskov (1952)
• Danish stand, Triennale, Milan (1957)
• Danish Embassy in Washington, DC (1960)
• Anders Hostrup-Pedersen's summer house (1962)

literature

• Esbjørn Hiort: Finn Juhl - Furniture, Architecture, Applied Art , Copenhagen 1990/2010, ISBN 978-87-7407-404-5 .
• Charlotte and Peter Fiell: Scandinavian Design: Scandinavian design. Taschen, Cologne 2003, ISBN 978-3-8228-4115-0 .
• Anne-Louise Sommer: Watercolors by Finn Juhl. Hatje Cantz Verlag, Berlin 2016. ISBN 978-3-7757-4209-2 .
• Per H. Hansen: Finn Juhl and His House. Hatje Cantz Verlag, Berlin 2014. ISBN 978-3-7757-3797-5 .

Web links

Commons : Finn Juhl  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Finn Juhl scandinaviandesign.com, accessed September 2, 2011.
• Finn Juhl. The triumph of Danish design SoLebIch.de, accessed on September 2, 2011.
• Juhl's home, Ordrupgaard Wohnkultur 66, accessed December 16, 2013.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Regina Voges: Finn Juhl , Wohnkultur 66, accessed on March 22, 2017.
2. ↑ Karin Leydecker : A Master of Soft Form , in NZZ from December 1, 2016, accessed on March 22, 2017.
3. ↑ One Collection: Finn Juhl Handbook ( Memento of the original from August 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed March 22, 2017. 
4. ^ András Simonyi, Debra Cagan: Nordic Ways . Brookings Institution Press, 2017, ISBN 978-0-9907721-9-4 ( google.de [accessed November 6, 2019]).
5. ↑ Andrew Hollingsworth: Danish Modern . Gibbs Smith, 2009, ISBN 978-1-4236-1359-6 ( google.de [accessed November 6, 2019]).
6. ↑ Mark Mussari: Danish Modern: Between Art and Design . Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016, ISBN 978-1-4742-2369-0 ( google.de [accessed November 6, 2019]).
7. ↑ Interview with Anne-Louise Sommer: Finn Juhl , accessed on March 23, 2017.
8. ↑ Susanne Fritz: CELEBRATING A SCANDINAVIAN ICON: 100 YEARS FINN JUHL , in Architonic of March 7, 2012, accessed on March 22, 2017.
9. ↑ The Universe of Finn Juhl ( memento March 23, 2017 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on March 22, 2017.
10. ↑ Finn Juhl - A Danish Design Icon , accessed March 22, 2017.
11. ↑ Gwendolyn Horton: Chieftains Chair sells for $ 674,099 at auction , October 11, 2013, accessed March 22, 2017.
12. ↑ Phillips : FINN JUHL, 'Chieftain' armchair , accessed on March 22, 2017
13. ↑ Artcurial: Finn JUHL (1912-1989) - EXCEPTIONNEL FAUTEUIL MOD. FJ 49 DIT “CHIEFTAIN” ( memento of the original from March 23, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed March 22, 2017. 
14. ↑ Véronique Lorelle: Finn Juhl, l'acmé du design nordique , in Le Monde on May 19, 2015, accessed on March 22, 2017.
15. ^ Joan Kron: Home Beat , New York Times, December 1, 1977, accessed March 22, 2017.
16. ^ William L. Hamilton: Design Notebook; What's Cool, Calm and Collected? Nordic Modern , in the New York Times February 26, 1998, accessed March 22, 2017.
17. ↑ DWR: Chieftains Chair , accessed March 22, 2017
18. ↑ Jacob Bernstein: Wyeth, a Temple of Midcentury Modern Design, Seeks New Wallets , in the New York Times, June 1, 2016, accessed March 22, 2017.
19. ↑ One Collection: 2013/14 onecollection ( Memento from March 23, 2017 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on March 22, 2017
20. ^ Google Cultural Institute : Chair, Model No. NV-45 , accessed March 23, 2017.
21. ↑ Model FJ 48 , accessed March 23, 2017.
22. ↑ Model FJ 45 , accessed March 23, 2017.
23. ↑ Finn Juhl Armchair (model 48) c. 1946 , Retrieved March 23, 2017.
24. ^ Finn Juhl Armchair 1951 , accessed March 23, 2017.
25. ↑ A&W Architektur & Wohnen : In Finn Juhl's house , accessed on March 22, 2017.
26. ↑ ZEIT Online : In the executive chair in front of the fireplace , accessed on March 22, 2017.
27. ↑ Finn Juhl House ( Memento of the original from March 23, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Video, accessed March 23, 2017.  
28. ^ Finn Juhls Hus , accessed March 23, 2017.
29. ^ Finn Juhl Art Museum Club. Retrieved November 6, 2019 .  , on finn-juhl-house-takayama.org
30. ^ Facebook page of the Danish Embassy in Tokyo : House of Finn Juhl - a copy of the designer's house in Denmark - opens in Takayama, Gifu. , accessed April 10, 2017
31. ↑ Francesco Garutti: A breath of fresh air , in Domus on May 29, 2015, accessed on March 23, 2017.
32. ↑ Marianne Torp: Marianne Torp interviews Danh Vo on his exhibition mothertongue - The Danish Pavilion, April 2015 , press release, accessed on March 23, 2017.
33. ↑ Per H. Hansen: Finn Juhl og hans hus . Gyldendal A / S, 2009, ISBN 978-87-02-07807-7 ( google.de [accessed on December 2, 2019]).