Arne Jacobsen: The New Collection

Arne Jacobsen must be one of the most prolific and influential designers of the twentieth century. The Egg, the Swan, the Ant and the Series 7 to name but the chairs. But he also made cutlery, tableware, door handles and lights. Oh and he was also an architect.

He was, in short (and in the nicest possible way) rather a control freak. When commissioned in 1958 to design a new college for Oxford University he added a clause to the contract stating that he should undertake as much as possible of the landscape design and the fixtures and fittings.

St Catherine’s College has his door knobs, curtains dyed to the precise shade of grey that he required, even the species of fish in the pond were chosen by the Danish designer. And, in a possible attempt to control Mother Nature he also decided how tall the trees in the quadrangle should be.

He was similarly precise when it came to the design of the SAS Royal Copenhagen hotel in Denmark, where the ashtrays for the gift shop and the cutlery all came from his pen. It was for this hotel that the Swan and Egg were produced. The hotel has changed a little now, but one room remains exactly as he designed it in 1960. And, I can tell you, following my visit there last week, it’s quite strange to walk into a room and find it so littered with design classics.

Now the Danish company Design Letters & Friends has used the hotel as inspiration for their latest collection of Arne Jacobsen inspired pieces. The company, founded by Mette and Jacob Thomsen, first produced a series of mugs and bedding based around Jacobsen’s hand drawn alphabet of 1937. That range is now sold in 53 different countries.

At lunch in the Royal Copenhagen last week, Mette and Jacob revealed their new collection loosely called The Two Sides of Arne Jacobsen.  The first is Royal Vintage, which includes stationery and a gorgeous Alpaca throw using a design that was originally used for the carpet on the second floor of the hotel. And I wish you could still buy it as carpet because I would definitely love to have it running up my stairs.

The second design seems somewhat unexpected for such a graphically-minded designer but is based on a series of drawings Jacobsen did while in exile in Sweden during WWII. As a Jew, he left Denmark during the war and spent time in Sweden where he created a large number of water colours and floral motifs, including the one you see here, which is the second part of the new collection. This new direction may also, according to Jacob, have had something to do with a girlfriend he had at the time who was “very into textiles and he became very floral during that time”.

The black and green vases were originally created for the hotel lobby and Design Letters has put them into production for the first time. The delicate green shade was mixed to Jacobsen’s exact wishes and can still be seen in room 606 which remains untouched since he first designed it.

“There is no-one who was as good as him in so many areas,” said Jacob at the launch last week. He had very strong intuition and he knew what he wanted.” Which may, on balance, be rather an understatement for one who paid such meticulous attention to detail.

Following the success of the typographic collection, Mette said Jacobsen’s grandson Tobias contacted her two years ago to ask if she was interested in looking through an old box of his grandfather’s “stuff”.

“I felt I was being invited to a designer flea market at which I was the only guest,” she said.

She selected these two patterns and decided to work with them to take the Jacobsen name forward. Although she admitted there was plenty more in the box. “It was very difficult to choose and Tobias had to ring me more than once to ask for the box back.”

But, she assured us, the box hasn’t given up all its secrets yet, and there are lots more designs in the pipework as well as everything you see here in these pictures. Obviously I love the geometric designs and I don’t tend to think of myself as a lover of florals but I could make an exception for these black and white ones.

The stationery will be sold in Selfridges and the Tate shops and will be in store in the next couple of weeks and the bedding and vases will be sold at Amara so keep an eye out for it landing there. You can see more of the Design Letters collection here.

So which side of Arne Jacobsen are you?