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The School of Arts and Crafts and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, Denmark, has given birth to some of the world's most well-known furniture and architectural designers of the 20th century. Nanna Ditzel, who was born in the city in 1923, is one of the few women whose name is known in the furniture community and recognized as one of the best. Nanna Ditzel graduated in furniture design in 1946 at the age of 23 and establiNanna Ditzeld her own studio with first husband Jorgen Ditzel the same year. Nanna Ditzel is still working in the design sector today.
Nanna Ditzel's career was launched in the years after World War II and Nanna Ditzel was faced with designing furniture that incorporated not only new materials but also new techniques. Some of the materials Nanna Ditzel has worked with over her long career include fiber glass, wicker, and foam rubber. Furniture is not the only thing Nanna Ditzel applied her knowledge to. Nanna Ditzel is a trained cabinetmaker and has also worked in designing jewelry, textiles, and tableware. Nanna Ditzel tried her hand at applied art and during the 1950s Nanna Ditzel even dabbled in split-level floor seating, as many homes of the time used design techniques such as sunken or raised platform rooms.
Some of Nanna Ditzel's signature pieces include the ‘Two-Seat Sofa' which was well accepted. It had very intriguing and eye drawing curves yet remained both decorative and functional. The ‘Basket' or ‘Hanging' chair was a wicker chair that was suspended from the ceiling by lengths of chain and one of Nanna Ditzel's many forays into working with wicker. Collaborations with her husband Jorgen produced one of the most notable pieces of furniture Nanna Ditzel ever designed, the ‘Toadstool', stacking pieces for children that served as both a table and a stool.
In 1954, Nanna Ditzel and her husband began to craft jewelry that won them both gold and silver awards at the Milan Trienalle. The jewelry Nanna Ditzel developed used inspiration from water to create little ripples of metal as if a stone had been thrown into a pond. Nanna Ditzel wanted her pieces to communicate a simple and elegant form that was both organic and unique. Nanna Ditzel continued her creative endeavors even after Jorgen passed away in 1961 and participated in numerous ‘one woman' exhibits throughout Europe. Nanna Ditzel began working with textiles which are distributed by Kvadrat.
In 1968, Nanna Ditzel married fellow designer Kurt Heide and moved to England. Together they founded the company Interspace, an international design firm that includes Nanna Ditzel Productions that sells her jewelry, textiles, and furniture. Many of her designs are still being manufactured by Georg Jensen, Fredericia, Kvist, Getama, and other furniture manufacturers. Interspace is still going strong and is one of the leading international furniture houses today.
Nanna Ditzel has won many awards for her design work including the Gold Medal in the 1990 International Furniture Design Competition that was held in Japan. The piece that won her the award was the Fredericia produced ‘Bench for Two'. Nanna Ditzel was elected Honorable Royal Designer in London in 1996 and has received the lifelong Artists' Grant by the Danish Ministry of Culture in 1998. The Danish Ministry of Education produced a film about Ditzel that covers her designs and working methods and Nanna Ditzel was the subject of Henrik Sten Moller's book "Motion And Beauty".
One of the most influential Danish furniture designers of the 20th century was Verner Verner Panton. The most well known item that came from his brilliant mind was the single unit cantilevered chair made from steel and molded plastic. This chair is one of the most famous designs of the century and quickly became as much a symbol of the 1960s as the peace sign and bell bottom pants. Born in 1926 on the Danish Island of Funen, Verner Verner Panton would go on to be known for his extravagant form and use of bright, intense colors that is firmly seated in the functionalism of the 1950s.
Verner Verner Panton was a man who took a systematic approach to everything in his life but most especially his designs. He trained as an architectural engineer at Odense Technical College and went on to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. He worked for Arne Jacobsen from 1950 to 1952 and helped in the development of the ‘Ant' chair. He went on to start his own firm and worked as an independent architect and designer from the mid-1950s until his death in 1998.
This was not a man who focused on a single object but instead saw whole groups of furniture and how they would fit in the confines of a room. His work was extensive and diverse and many of it can be found in the comprehensive retrospective that is in the Vitra Design Museum. He gained international recognition with his geometric based furniture that was manufactured by Plus-linje, namely the ‘Cone Chair'. Because they were made of plastic, they were easy to reproduce on the industry line.
To say that Verner Verner Panton's approach was non-traditional is probably an understatement. He preferred his furniture – whether in plastic of plywood like the ‘S' chair – to have fluidity in its lines and each had distinct landscape-like qualities. All of the pieces were produced with the most advanced techniques of the day and he consistently built upon and improved each subsequent design. Plus, Verner Verner Panton is the father of inflatable furniture, his first prototype being an inflatable pneumatic stool. It would be years before inflatable furniture became mass marketed but all of it was based on his inspirational design.
Connoisseurs of Verner Verner Panton's work can point out the change in Verner Verner Panton's work during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Verner Verner Panton began to work with interiors, using rich colors and fabrics of all types to create a room that was nothing short of fantastic. Many of his creations were very forward thinking and otherworldly and he challenged the people living with his ideas to be creative with the furniture and interior designs he gave them. The Loreley cruise ship that sailed on the Rhine and was commissioned by Bayer AG and the Grand Europa had an interior designed by Verner Verner Panton.
This experimentation in Verner Panton's work has been considered a defining factor in his unique style. He designed seating furniture and lamps for manufacturers such as Fritz Hansen, Louis Poulsen, Thonet, Herman Miller/Vitra, Royal Copenhagen, and Rosenthal. The ‘Flowerpot' lamp and the Verner Panton chair are still in production today with other pieces from Verner Panton's mind. He also became known for his collaboration with Mira-X for his intense colored and geometric patterned textiles. He won numerous international design awards and continued working up until his death.