Icon: Børge Mogensen at Home
Børge Mogensen’s widow, Alice, died recently. Since his untimely death in 1972, she had preserved the arrangement of the family’s house in Gentofte, as it was then. Bo Bedre magazine was invited to be one of the last allowed to visit the house before it was put up for sale, and was able to create a photographic document for posterity from a unique universe of old prototypes and carpenter willing details created by one of Denmark’s major designers.
Børge Mogensen died in 1972, when he was just 57 years old. From 1958 the family lived in the house at Soløsevej in Gentofte north of Copenhagen.
During his years at the Copenhagen School of Arts and Crafts the young Mogensen developed a close partnership with his mentor Kaare Klint and subsequently also assumed Klint’s approach to simple and functional furniture design. Later on Mogensen was to work as Klint’s teaching assistant at the Royal Academy.
Functional is the word which best describes Børge Mogensen’s design. The majority of his furniture was designed with industrial production in mind and is characterized by strong and simple lines. His true genius is to be found in his almost scientific analysis of the functionality of a piece of furniture.
A smaller but essential part of Mogensen’s work was the cabinetmade pieces, one of them being “the Hunting chair” from 1950 made by Erhard Rasmussen. A simple low easy chair with an oak frame from where the strong natural leather seat and back is stretched.
Other important pieces include “The Spokeback Sofa” designed in 1945, which with its lightness and simple, open construction differed from most sofas at the time, and “The Spanish Chair” from 1959, a low, robust easy chair.
Børge Mogensen (1914–1972) Home, Gentofte, Denmark
via: Bo Bedre and danish-furniture.com, Photography by Mads Mogensen
Wednesday, April 18th, 2012
Curiosity Object by Gaëlle Gabillet & Stéphane Villard
Jarson Residence by Will Bruder + Partners
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July 3rd, 2012 at 8:45 pm
I like the connection to nature and natural materials. Piece of furnitur that fits me to this interiors is sideboard CASSIS