(1912 - 1989)
Finn Juhl was a Danish architect and industrial and interior designer. He’s best known for his furniture designs and Juhl was one of the foremost developers of mid-century Danish design in the 1940s.
Born on January 30 1912 in Frederiksburg, Denmark, Juhl originally wanted to become an art historian but his father persuaded him to study architecture. Juhl went on to study architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1930 to 1934, before joining
Vilhelm Lauritzen’s architecture firm in Nordhavn, Denmark.
During his ten years at Lauritzen he collaborated with Viggo Boesen on one of the firm’s biggest projects, the interior design of
Danmark Radio’s Radiohuset.Finn Juhl made his furniture debut in 1937 when he collaborated with cabinetmaker Niels Vodder. This collaboration lasted until 1959 and the pair exhibited at the 11th Copenhagen Cabinetmakers’ Guild Exhibition. While his early chairs were only produced in small numbers at first, they were mostly reissued later on in Juhl’s career.
The guild exhibitions were important for young designers because they could showcase their new trends, which left behind plush, overly ornate styles and embraced the now-familiar mid-century Scandinavian look.
Despite Juhl’s
1939 Pelikan chair attracting a lot of criticism - “...resemble more than anything tired walruses…” - his work found its way into homes all over the world during the 1940s. Juhl is credited with being the designer who
introduced Danish modern to America (1).
After leaving Lauritzen in 1945, Juhl set up his own design studio in Nyhavn, where he specialised in furniture and interiors. Juhl also taught at the Danmarks Designskole from 1945 to 1955.
"One cannot create happiness with beautiful objects, but one can spoil quite a lot of happiness with bad ones," Finn Juhl, Interiors magazine, 1951.
Finn Juhl had a lot of international success after featuring in the 1951 Good Design exhibition in Chicago. Juhl did 24 pieces for the exhibition, including chairs, tables, storage units and sideboards and this line was the first time he combined mass production with high craftsmanship.
In 1952 Juhl designed the
Trusteeship Council Chamber at the United Nations’ HQ in New York and went on to win five gold medals throughout the Milan Triennials during the 1950s.
While his star waned somewhat during the 1960s and 1970s, the 1990s saw a big resurgence of interest in Juhl’s designs.
Finn Juhl’s designs offered a softer edge to modernist wooden chairs, with his organic shapes pushing the limits of what was possible with wood.
A classic Juhl chair form factor was the seemingly floating seat and back. The seat and backrests were usually upholstered in contrast to the bare wood of the supporting elements.
As well as the Trusteeship Council Chamber, Juhl designed several other interiors, including 30 Scandinavian Airlines ticket offices during the late 1950s and the Georg Jensen shop on New York's Fifth Avenue in 1952.