Danish Design

This course offers a survey of Danish design, focusing foremost on the post-war era (ca. 1945-the 1960s).

ND54 Children’s High Chair, 1955. Designers: Nanna and Jørgen Ditzel. Current Manufacturers: Carl Hansen & Søn. Photo: Keld Helmer-Petersen, 1959. The photo portrays twins Lulu & Vita Ditzel

It concentrates on a design tradition world renowned for, amongst other things, high-quality craftsmanship, functionality, humanism, contextualism, simplicity, comprehensiveness, and creative continuity between tradition and renewal. Design is never merely a question of beautiful forms and surfaces, and therefore this course purposefully explores below the surface. We will examine the wider issues of ethics and aesthetics as exemplified in designs for the Welfare State.

We shall critically question the given topics from different positions as ‘design as common good’, ‘shattering the familiar’, ‘women in DD’, ‘decolonising design history’, and ‘Quo Vadis, DD?’.

The course includes independent field studies of significant local sites which gives opportunities for us to challenge experiential blindness and deepen place-based learning.

This Danish Design course does not directly overlap the course material covered in the Danish Architecture and Urban Design course. Thus, it is completely suitable to enrol in both courses in the same semester.

Course code: HDCB01203U
Credits: 15 ECTS
Duration: 1 semester
Available: Spring and autumn semester.

Note: Example – subject to change

Lecture Theme
Lecture 1 What is Design?
Lecture 2 Contemplating Danish Design Values & Designing (for) Everyday Life
Lecture 3 Product Design
Lecture 4 Furniture Design - Part 1 of 2
Excursion 1 Group Field Study: Louis Poulsen, Design Museum Denmark, Carl Hansen &
Son, FDB Møbler & House of Finn Juhl.
Lecture 5 Furniture Design - Part 2 of 2
Lecture 6 Architectural Design
Lecture 7 Civic Design
Lecture 8 Transportation Design
Excursion 2 Group Field Study: Fritz Hansen Workshop & Danish Architecture Centre
Lecture 9 Guest Lecture by Architect
Lecture 10 Seminar & Lecture: DD in the Blender: Objectifying & Commodifying DD;
Shattering the Familiar; Decolonising Design