Mogensen 2334 Lounge Chair

Børge Mogensen (1914-1972) was one of the most influential designers in shaping Danish Modern design and Fredericia’s founding designer from 1955 until his untimely death in 1972. He found inspiration all over the world in his quest to create everyday objects that would endure for generations. Mogensen's most recognised pieces were developed during his collaboration and friendship with Andreas Graversen, Fredericia’s CEO from 1955 - 1995.

Børge Mogensen was a pioneer who helped establish Denmark as a culture of furniture design. His life-long ambition was to create durable, useful furniture that would enrich people’s everyday lives. Functional furniture for all parts of the home and society.

Mogensen believed that furniture should create a sense of tranquillity and have a modest appearance that encourages people to live their lives unpretentiously. He was acclaimed for his masterful sense of materials and proportions. Along with his ability to create beautiful, distinctive furniture by emphasising simple horizontal and vertical lines and surfaces. All in an attempt to create clean, aesthetically-pleasing designs that were easy to produce.

His furniture can be described as modest yet very self-confident - just like their creator. Throughout his career, Mogensen was one of the boldest voices in the critical debate about furniture design. While working strictly within his self-imposed dogmas, he would occasionally break his own rules without abandoning their original intent. He often criticised his peers for compromising their artistic integrity in favour of short-sighted trends.

Mogensen preferred to work with refined, yet rustic natural materials, such as solid oak, leather, wool fabrics and brass mountings. At the same time, he always welcomed innovations that he found were a genuine progression of his craft.

”I do
become more and more narrow in my
devotion. Within a very limited field, I strive to live out to the utmost border of possibilities within both the material and the shape. sometimes I cross that border – and then I learn.”

A trained cabinet-maker and furniture designer, Mogensen attended the Copenhagen School of Arts and Crafts before enrolling at the school of furniture design at Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, where he was taught by Kaare Klint. After graduating in 1941, Mogensen continued to defend the ideals of evolutionary design that were essential to Klint’s own principles, while also expanding on design traditions. Contrary to Klint, Mogensen explored classic cabinet-maker typologies and techniques, finding fresh solutions that facilitated mass production. He also pursued projects that contributed to the surge in informal housing during the 1960s.

In 1948, Mogensen participated in MoMA’s “International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design”. Back home in Denmark, inspired by the exhibition, he experimented with plywood shells and merged aspects of the global modernist movement with his own design identity. He also found inspiration in ethnic arts & crafts, lithography and Japanese wooden carvings.

Shortly after opening his own design firm in 1950, Mogensen began collaborating with young interior architect and entrepreneur, Andreas Graversen, who would later become the owner of Fredericia Furniture.

Graversen’s acquisition of Fredericia in 1955 marked the start of a professional partnership with Mogensen that developed into a strong friendship, fuelled by a shared desire to create simple, high-quality furniture with an enduring aesthetic appeal. They were equally passionate about their vision and their work, resulting in a partnership that was often temperamental.

One reason for Mogensen's prolific creativity at Fredericia was Graversen’s unwavering support and willingness to fulfil his uncompromising demands for quality. Mogensen’s most iconic pieces were developed at Fredericia’s workshop. To date, Fredericia remains the primary producer of his furniture. Graversen and Mogensen’s high demands for quality, functionality and sense of materialiality are still very much alive in our approach when developing new furniture today.

Mogensen received numerous awards and recognitions for his rich repertoire of work. In 1972, he was appointed Honourary Royal Designer for Industry at the Royal Society of Arts in London. That same year, he received the highest architectural honour in Denmark at the time, the C.F. Hansen Medal, as well as The Eckersberg Medal, which he also won in 1950. Previously in 1971, Mogensen and Graversen jointly received the Danish Furniture Prize for their contribution to the Danish furniture industry.

Børge Mogensen died prematurely in 1972 at the age of 58. Examples of his most celebrated designs can be seen in leading design museums around the world.