page_title: Danish modern
section_title: The Danish furniture industry
hierarchical_section_title: Danish modern / The Danish furniture industry
caption_attribution_description: English: Selection of Danish Modern chairs (from left to right: Panton chair, unidentified, Ant chair by Arne Jacobsen), Danish Design Center, Copenhagen
context_page_description: Danish modern is a style of minimalist furniture and housewares from Denmark associated with the Danish design movement. In the 1920s, Kaare Klint embraced the principles of Bauhaus modernism in furniture design, creating clean, pure lines based on an understanding of classical furniture craftsmanship coupled with careful research into materials, proportions and the requirements of the human body. With designers such as Arne Jacobsen and Hans Wegner and associated cabinetmakers, Danish furniture thrived from the 1940s through the 1960s. Adopting mass-production techniques and concentrating on form rather than just function, Finn Juhl contributed to the style's success. Danish housewares adopting a similar minimalist design such as cutlery and trays of teak and stainless steel and dinnerware such as those produced in Denmark for Dansk in its early years, expanded the Danish modern aesthetic beyond furniture.
context_section_description: Employing some 15,000 people, each year Denmark's 400 furniture companies produce goods worth around DKK 13 billion (€1.75 billion). A highly productive sector, over 80% of the furniture produced is sold abroad making furniture Denmark's fifth most-important export industry. Most of the items produced are for the home, but many are designed for the workplace. In addition to its classic designs, Danish designer furniture benefits from a new generation of innovative players. As a result, Denmark has maintained its place as the world's leading furniture producer in relation to the country's population.
  A number of firms continue to be active in producing both classic Danish Modern designs and in introducing variants designed by a new generation of artists. They include Republic of Fritz Hansen, Fredericia Furniture, Carl Hansen & Søn and Normann Copenhagen, all of whom exhibited at the 2011 Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan. Other significant producers include PP Møbler, Kjærholm Production and One Collection, formerly known as Hansen & Sørensen.
  Innovative design work is also encouraged by the Wilhelm Hansen Foundation with the annual Finn Juhl Prize which is awarded to designers, manufacturers or writers who have made a special contribution to the field of furniture design, especially chairs.
caption: Danish Modern chairs at the Danish Design Center in Copenhagen
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