FRITZ HANSEN
It was the year 1872 when the Danish countryman Fritz Hansen, a master carpenter, realised his vision: He founded the furniture manufactory Fritz Hansen with the aspiration to produce the best quality-furniture with a contemporary, yet timeless design vocabulary.
His success proved the concept to be the right one. Already in the first 50 years of his company's history Fritz Hansen completed remarkable and renowned showcase projects. This lead the company to contracts for furnishing entire buildings in Copenhagen, like the university library, the castle Christiansborg, the town hall, as well as the Supreme Court.
The outstanding handiwork, the spectacular design of the furniture, made the Danish manufacturer Fritz Hansen an internationally renowned company able to win special design talents to work with them. Fritz Hansen already cooperated with Arne Jacobsen, who was a pioneer in steam-bending wood to make chairs, as early as 1934. Fritz Hansen's international breakthrough happened in the 1950s with the famous chair The Ant. This design classic was the foundation for the Serie 7, a chair collection by Fritz Hansen that counts as one of the most successful collections in the history of this Danish furniture manufacturer. From then on Fritz Hansen's success was unstoppable, and Arne Jacobsens complete work of art in the heart of Copenhagen, the SAS Royal Hotel, is legendary even today. For Fritz Hansen he designed the entire architectural concept, strongly influenced by German Bauhaus architecture. Additionally, he created the interior furnishings up to the smallest details and his sensational easy chairs, like The Egg or The Swan, are sought-after collector's items to this day.
Numerous star designers followed and contributed to Fritz Hansen's story of success, in the 1950s Poul Kjærholm, who designed many chair prototypes like the PK22, PK20, or PK9. More recently Piero Lissoni designed the modular sofa system Alphabet, Kasper Salto created the design for the Nap chair, and Jaime Hayón designed the Favn sofa, just to name a few.
Fritz Hansen and his designers follow no lesser goal than to produce design classics. They prefer organic, sculptural shapes that seem to inspire people. These new designs also feature expressive shapes, a strong recognition value, and with their timeless modernity have the potential to become true design classics made by Fritz Hansen!