Danish modern

Danish modern also known as Scandinavian 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.

Designers such as Arne Jacobsen and Hans Wegner helped bring about a thriving furniture industry from the 1940s to the 1960s. Adopting mass-production techniques and concentrating on functional form, Finn Juhl contributed to the style's success. Additionally, minimalist Danish housewares such as cutlery and trays of teak and stainless steel and dinnerware such as those produced in Denmark for Dansk International Designs in its early years, expanded the Danish modern aesthetic beyond furniture.^{[citation needed]}

Between the two world wars, Kaare Klint exerted a strong influence on Danish furniture making. Appointed head of the Furniture Department at the Architecture School of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, he encouraged his students to take an analytical approach, adapting design to modern-day needs. Adopting the Functionalist trend of abandoning ornamentation in favour of form, he nonetheless maintained the warmth and beauty inherent in traditional Danish cabinet making, as well as high-quality craftsmanship and materials.

The development of modern Danish furniture owes much to the collaboration between architects and cabinetmakers. Cabinetmaker A. J. Iversen, who had successfully exhibited furniture from designs by architect Kay Gottlob at the International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts in 1925 in Paris, was instrumental in fostering further partnerships. In 1927, with a view to encouraging innovation and stimulating public interest, the Danish Cabinetmakers Guild organized a furniture exhibition in Copenhagen which was to be held every year until 1967. It fostered collaboration between cabinetmakers and designers, creating a number of lasting partnerships including those between Rudolph Rasmussen and Kaare Klint, A. J. Iversen and Ole Wanscher, and Erhard Rasmussen and Børge Mogensen. From 1933, collaboration was reinforced as a result of the annual competition for new types of furniture, arranged each year prior to the exhibition.

In 1931, another key institution in the development of Danish Modern formed; The Association of Arts (Danish: Forening for Kunsthaandværk) founded a permanent venue for arts and craft called Den Permanente [da].

In the post World War II years, Danish designers and architects believed that design could be used to improve people's lives. In the late 1940s, the growing middle class in Denmark began to show interest in Danish Modern and helped fuel further investment into the style. Particular attention was given to creating affordable furniture and household objects that were both functional and elegant. Fruitful cooperation ensued, combining Danish craftsmanship with innovative design. Initially, the furniture was handmade, but recognizing that their work would sell better if prices were reduced, the designers soon turned to factory production.

The scarcity of materials after the war encouraged the use of plywood. In the late 1940s, the development of new techniques led to the mass production of bent plywood designs by Hans Wegner and Børge Mogensen, both of whom produced chairs with a teak plywood seat and back on a beech frame. In 1951, Arne Jacobsen went even further with his sculptural Ant Chair with a one-piece plywood seat and back, bent in both directions. Collapsible chairs dating from the 1930s include Kaare Klint's Safari Chair and propeller stools which were also developed by Poul Kjærholm and Jørgen Gammelgaard.

Danish furniture exports grew from just DKK 0.8 million in 1939 to DKK 6.8 million in 1944.