Arne Jacobsen

Arne Jacobsen (Copenhagen 1902 - 1971) was a major innovator in Danish architecture and the creator of some of the world's most famous and best-selling chairs. As an aspiring painter and apprentice bricklayer in his youth, he attended the School of Architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, where he graduated in 1927. The first period of his activity took place in his homeland, during which he won the first prize in the Akademisk Arkitektforeningen competition for a "house of the future" designed with F. Lassen (1929).  He later moved to Sweden, where he mainly worked on upholstery and fabric design. When he returned to Denmark and participated in numerous competitions, winning in 1961 the Grand Prix d'Architecture et d'Art. The most outstanding feature of Jacobsen's architecture consists of a perfect balance between the demands pursued by the avant-garde movements of the 1920s and the constructive and formal tradition of Danish architecture. Arne Jacobsen's work is exhibited in numerous international collections, including MoMA in New York, the Design Museum in London and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. When he died in 1971, his partners Hans Dissing and Otto Weitling, now the Copenhagen-based Dissing+Weitling, took over his legacy.