Borge Mogensen

In addition to mapping out the terrain of home storage, Mogensen was a prolific furniture designer, exhibiting almost every year at the Copenhagen Cabinetmaker's Guild Exhibitions. He was also the Head of Furniture Design during the 1940s for the Danish Cooperative Wholesale Society. His furniture, strongly representative of his training as a traditional craftsman, was greatly appreciated by a public who had not yet become interested in modernism and the changes its influence had created on furniture and the decorative arts.

Mogensen appeased these skeptics with his classical designs, but also, from the beginning of his career, subtly incorporated new ideas into his revisitation of traditional forms. He designed a sofa in 1945 with leather ties which allowed the sides to be dropped down. A 1949 chair, claimed by critics to be "a model for future chairs," used a curved, slightly sloping backrest, cut out along the spine in an organic dewdrop shape.

A 1951 interior for the Cabinetmaker's show combined Danish oak with leather upholstery and slate tiling in a way that articulated a new grouping of materials. "This is Where We Live, " a family room set he designed in 1953, dealt with the new concept of a living room that would contain a workbench and a sewing table, encouraging members of the family to take part in several activities simultaneously.

* Items listed on this page are reproductions of the original design. Items are not produced by the actual designer nor are they affiliated with the official manufacturers. Any mention of the designer or original product name is only for comparison purposes. *