14.February 2012

Finn Juhl's House at Ordrupgaard

The pioneer furniture designer Finn Juhl’s home is part of Ordrupgaard. Journalists and photografers are most welcome to visit the home and tell their Finn Juhl story.

The Danish architect Finn Juhl (1912–1989) is regarded as one of the greatest furniture designers of the 20th century. He was a pioneer figure within Danish furniture design and the Danish Modern movement, along with such figures as Hans Wegner, Arne Jacobsen, Poul Kjærholm and Børge Mogensen.

Of all contemporary Danish furniture designers, Finn Juhl made the greatest international impact. He was chosen to furnish one of the large council rooms at the UN building in New York. His furniture was represented at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Finn Juhl thus became a kind of ambassador or producer for Danish Modern outside Denmark. Today, both American and Japanese collectors queue up to buy his unique furniture whenever it comes up for auction.

Synergy with Zaha Hadid

Finn Juhl’ private home was in Kratvænget in Charlottenlund adjoining Ordrupgaard’s park, in a house he himself had designed and built as a young architect in 1942. The house is a unique example of Danish modernism as regards architecture, furniture design and visual art. Finn Juhl designed all the furniture for the house, which looks almost exactly as it did when he died in 1989. Thanks to a private donation, the unique architect’s home will in future be part of the Ordrupgaard museum complex. The house is opened to the public, with direct access from Ordrupgaard’s park when it will form a fascinating counterpart to the other museum buildings: the old stately home built between 1916 and 1918 by the architect Gotfred Tvede and the Zaha Hadid extension of 2005. Tickets can be bought at the museums reception.

The artist among furniture designers

Ordrupgaard marked the opening of Finn Juhl’s house in 2008 with a presentation exhibition about the furniture designer and his house. The exhibition presented highlights from his architecture, furniture design and interior design, based on his own home in Kratvænget. It focused on the artistic, sculptural side of his work as a furniture designer – a hitherto relatively undocumented aspect of his work. In many ways, Finn Juhl was the artist among the Danish furniture designers of his age, and his furniture has a distinctively organic, sculptural idiom that in its expression is far-removed from the rest of the furniture design of the time.

Press photos of Finn Juhl’s house can be downloaded from the press section of our website at: www.ordrupgaard.dk

For further information please contact:

Marketing manager Manon Lüttichau, +45 39 96 02 92, machau@ordrupgaard.dk or
Press officer Line Marie Lærkholm-Bengtsen limalb@ordrupgaard.dk

Ordrupgaard, Vilvordevej 110, DK-2920 Charlottenlund, www.ordrupgaard.dk