Hasta La Ideas

News: Herzog & de Meuron has won a competition to design a hospital in a Danish forest, with plans for a building shaped like a four-leaf clover (+ slideshow).

Located north of Copenhagen in Hillerød, the New North Zealand Hospital will be Herzog & de Meuron‘s first project in Scandinavia and will be completed in collaboration with local firm Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects.

The building is conceived as a low-rise pavilion-like structure that never exceeds four storeys in height. A total of 24 medical departments will be housed inside and a large garden will be located on the roof.

Herzog & de Meuron says the structure will demonstrate that architectural ambition and functionality can be combined within a hospital.

“The choice of the jury is a seminal sign to architects and the entire health-care sector: low, flat hospital buildings can be better integrated in the city or the countryside than the high-rises structures that were often realised in the last decades,” said the studio.

“The hospital organically reaches out into the wide landscape. Simultaneously its soft, flowing form binds the many components of the hospital. It is a low building that fosters exchange between staff and patients, and it has a human scale despite its very large size.”

The building is scheduled to open in 2020, but could also facilitate an expansion in 2050.

“Herzog & de Meuron have designed a patient-centred hospital – a beautiful, healing and functional building that supports our patients’ recovery in the best possible way,” said hospital director Bente Ourø Rørth. “The hospital’s great strength is its highly successful and fundamental fusion of form and function.”

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for Danish forest hospital appeared first on Dezeen.

As Italy’s furniture industry struggles to bounce back after the recession, has Copenhagen regained its place as Europe’s design capital?

During the 1950s and 1960s, furniture enthusiasts from all over Europe and America flocked to Copenhagen to preview designs by Modernists Hans J. Wegner, Arne Jacobsen, Poul Kjaerholm and Finn Juhl – the old masters. Now Danish design is flourishing again.

Work by these designers has recently returned to the fore as the 100th anniversaries of their births have been celebrated.

Carl Hansen and Son, PP Møbler and Republic of Fritz Hansen are reissuing old designs and putting previously unseen designs into production. For the 100th anniversary of Hans J. Wegner’s birth this year, Carl Hansen and Son has started production on a wood and steel chair designed in 1955 and has also adopted the logo Wegner designed for the brand in 1950.

Danish design expert Christian Holmsted Olesen, who has curated an upcoming exhibition of work by Wegner at Copenhagen’s Dansk Design Museum, was one of the first to recognise the resurgence. “Here at the museum we have been experiencing it for 15 years now,” he said. “It started with the anniversary in 2002 when Arne Jacobsen would have been 100. Since then Danish design has been very popular again.”

While these grand masters are enjoying as much success now as they were in the mid-twentieth century, new Danish companies have also sprung onto the scene during the last decade and are fast becoming as popular.

The furniture by the masters is targeting the international luxury market, but brands including Hay, Muuto, &tradition, Normann Copenhagen and Menu are producing more affordable furniture. “[These] are all new brands, maybe ten years old, and their concept is to make Danish or Scandinavian design in the known style but a lot cheaper,” said Holmsted Olesen. “I think that’s the reason for their success, because a lot of the Danish design has become too expensive.”

Starting a new company in the shade of such a cultural heritage wasn’t easy, said Hay cofounder Rolf Hay.

“It had limitations, coming from a culture with such a strong background because in the beginning we were compared to these architects,” Hay told Dezeen.

“‘Why do a new chair when Arne Jacobsen already did the best chair in the world?’ It was really a struggle to get out of the shadows of the masters, but perhaps it was healthy to be challenged,” he continued.

Hay revealed that inspiration for the company’s concept of collaborating with international designers actually came from Italy. Hay had previously worked with Danish firm Gubi selling designs by Milanese brand Cappellini.

“Cappellini brought the whole world to Italy,” said Hay. “It was the first company to work with BarberOsgerby, the Bouroullecs, and it is still working with Jasper Morrison.”

Hay realised that cost was an issue for Cappellini and saw a gap in the market for similar products with more reasonable price tags: “There was a large group of people who appreciated Cappellini but could not afford it, so that was a starting point for our company. If we could do products on a very high design level but for an affordable price then there would eventually be a market there.”

Hay’s recent collaborators include British designer Sebastian Wrong, French duo Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, and Dutch studio Scholten & Baijings – see our interactive slideshow of the brands’ current products.

Other Danish design companies had similar ideas around the same time. This group of contemporary brands that emerged almost simultaneously, aimed at the same high-end low-cost market, are now creating healthy competition amongst themselves.

“In Copenhagen right now it’s quite interesting,” said Hay. “We’re competitors but we have a good understanding and a good relationship with each other.”

Hay has a theory about why they have survived and even thrived during the recession. “It’s maybe not so much about aesthetic, but more about ethic and about business mentality,” said Hay. “These companies are good at making products that clients are demanding.”

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Italy. Last year Moroso matriarch Patrizia Moroso declared that Milan is “sitting in the past” and “losing the culture behind production”, and former Domus editor-in-chief Joseph Grima was equally full of doom and gloom about the Italian design scene.

The Danish brands’ recession-busting success hasn’t gone unnoticed by the Italian companies. “I know for example that Vitra is studying what Hay is doing because they cannot understand how these companies are expanding as fast as they are,” Holmsted Olesen revealed. “The secret is that they understand that you do not want to pay more than £100 for a chair. They know exactly what the consumer is willing to pay.”

Another factor that could be contributing to the country’s success is the help given to up-and-coming designers. Both local brands and the government nurture talent emerging from Denmark’s design schools.

Young Danish designers Line Depping and Jakob Jørgensen both contribute to Hay’s collections and are also are able to work on their own projects. “We have an agreement that we work for them and have our things in production for them, as well as doing things for galleries and exhibitions,” said Depping.

This balance between working on commercial products and experimental pieces creates optimal relationships for the designers and the brand. “[Hay] know that a lot of good ideas come from the freedom that comes from smaller projects,” said Jørgensen. “Things can appear that are relevant for them so they definitely support that.”

The Danish government also offers a range of grants and financial aids that designers can apply for each year. Further assistance is provided by funded workshop spaces for designers to come and use.

Located in a former warehouse on Copenhagen’s waterfront, the Danish Art Workshops provide facilities including workshops for wood, metal, textiles and other materials that artists and designers can apply to use free of charge for short or long-term residencies. This gives them the opportunity to create large-scale pieces that wouldn’t fit in their own studios, or use specialist equipment with the assistance of trained technicians.

Additionally, the government supports a different set of designers each year to create pieces for the Mindcraft exhibition in Milan during the city’s design week in April. This exhibition promotes notion of craft and focus on quality, something that forms the link through Danish design – from its historical roots all the way to contemporary production.

This national design identity is appreciated worldwide and part of this is maintaining and promoting the idea of high-quality products. “Danish design is more about marketing that about products”, said Rolf Hay. “All these companies have a high-end design profile but they’re good at selling the idea.”

An enduring design tradition and history, healthy competition between business-minded brands and continued support for new talent has kept Denmark’s industry solid while Italy’s appears to be struggling. So is Copenhagen the new Milan?

“I’m going to say yes,” proclaimed Holmsted Olesen. “It’s possible, we’ve done it before. In the 1950s everyone came to Copenhagen to see what happened so of course it’s possible, if we keep doing it right.”

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Furniture by prolific Danish Modernist designer Hans J. Wegner will go on display at Copenhagen‘s design museum next month, marking the one-hundredth anniversary of his birth.

The Just One Good Chair exhibition at Designmuseum Danmark will showcase a retrospective of work by Hans J. Wegner, who designed over 1500 chairs and other furniture pieces before he passed away in 2007.

“If only you could design just one good chair in your life… But you simply cannot,” Wegner was quoted saying in 1952.

The exhibition will tell the story of his life and work, using over 150 pieces of his furniture alongside drawings, photos and models.

“I’d say he’s the most important Danish designer ever,” the exhibition’s curator Christian Holmsted Olesen told Dezeen. “The reason for that is that he developed this new organic Modernism, which became so popular especially in the US in the 1950s and 1960s.”

His most recognisable designs including the Wishbone Chair – named after the shape of its back support – and the bent plywood Shell Chair endured the Postmodern era, and remain as popular today as they were when they were first issued.

“During the 1980s the Postmodernists were criticising the Modernist design because it was boring, too rational, too anonymous,” Holmsted Olesen said. “Wegner’s design is never boring – it’s full of fantasy, it’s very poetic and it’s very human in its approach. It still is very rational and everything can be explained about the way it is constructed.”

Wegner trained as a cabinet maker before studying at the Danish School of Arts and Crafts under Kaare Klint, the so-called Father of Danish Design.

Wegner was soon commissioned to design furniture for Copenhagen brands such as Rud Rasmussen.

He spent hours measuring chairs from other cultures, especially Chinese, so he could prefect the shapes in his own pieces. “He was inspired by historical typologies and the idea of refining things from the past,”explained Holmsted Olesen.

In 1949, Americans visiting an exhibition of Danish furniture that included Wegner’s work saw one of his seats and named it “The Chair,” as they considered it perfect.

“Everyone had given up on craft all over the world and in the US there was a craft revival just after the Second World War, because everyone had seen what disaster the industrial development had created,” said Holmsted Olesen.

“Denmark really had something good at that time to present to the whole world and Hans Wenger was very good at designing in these organic forms,” he continued. “The international modernist movement, which came from Central Europe and the Bauhaus, had developed into more organic forms in architecture. But there was very little organic furniture design and he was one of the only designers doing this, so that’s why he came so popular in the 1950s and 1960s.”

The exhibition will also include prototypes that are previously undisplayed, such a lounge chair that Wegner kept in his own home and was used solely by his wife.

Wegner’s furniture is currently produced by three Danish firms – Carl Hansen & Son, PP Mobler and Fritz Hansen – using the same traditional craft techniques as in the 1950s and 1960s.

Carl Hansen & Son recently began producing the CH88 chair, first designed by Wegner in 1955, and adopted the logo he designed for the company in 1950.

The exhibition opens on 3 April and will continue until 2 November.

Here’s some more text sent to us by the museum:

Wegner – Just One Good Chair

Designmuseum Danmark marks the 100-year anniversary of Hans J. Wegner’s birth with a large exhibition, opening 3 April 2014.

“If only you could design just one good chair in your life . . . But you simply cannot” – Hans J. Wegner, 1952.

Hans J. Wegner (1914-2007) was one of history’s most prolific designers. In 1949 he created the design that the Americans called The Chair. The perfect chair – but he continued designing new ones nonetheless, producing a total of over 500. He was referred to as The King of Chairs – or just the Chair Maker. His furniture paved the way for Danish Design’s international breakthrough in the years after World War II, and he was to become a leading figure in Organic Modernism.

A poetic take on modernism

Wegner’s work always took its starting point in craftsmanship, and he produced nearly all of his own prototypes in the workshop. His life is best understood as an enduring mission to understand the logic and the potential of wood. He showed the modern world that the old virtues of craftsmanship, such as sensuality, beautiful detailing and the use of natural materials, also have a place in the modern industrialised world. Wegner’s approach to design was neither retrospective nor romantic, but his furniture was nevertheless full of poetry – which is why his designs, despite the fact that they are wholly rational and grounded in functionality, have remained popular right up to the present day, even escaping criticism from the postmodernists. In our late postmodern times, Wegner in many ways represents a more human route into modernism.

A cornerstone in Danish design

The exhibition tells the story of Wegner’s life and career, showing more than 150 of his major original works from the time, drawings, photos and models, exploring Wegner’s working methods and vast oeuvre. It is also possible to try out and touch over 50 newly produced Wegner-pieces in the exhibition. Along with film and furniture, by some of his contemporaries, like Charles & Ray Eames, Finn Juhl, Arne Jacobsen and Mies van der Rohe, the exhibition shows how the finest wooden furniture is made.

Wegner’s work was the product of the Danish Furniture School – while also representing a break with it because of his free, artistic mode of expression. Founded by Professor Kaare Klint in the 1920s, The Danish Furniture School set out to build on traditions. Historic furniture from different cultures and eras, from Designmuseum Danmarks’s collection, was studied, refined, and adapted to contemporary needs. A hallmark of Danish design is the desire to perfect the very best work found in other cultures and eras. The history of Danish design is like the history of Danish politics – defined not by revolution, but by evolution. This pragmatic, humanistic and democratic thinking is seen throughout every aspect of Danish society, and it is in this context that the characteristically clean lines of Danish products should be understood.

Traditionalist and modernist

Wegner worked his whole life towards improving old Chinese and English chairs, along with new, modernist furniture; and towards simplifying and beautifying them, in order to enhance their artistic expression, while also making them more suitable for industrial or mass production. The majority of his most ground-breaking ideas were presented at the annual Joiners’ Guild Exhibition at the Designmuseum Denmark. It’s at these exhibitions that Americans came to see the quality of Danish furniture art, and began to write about it. What was special about Wegner, as a Danish designer, was his ability to develop classic design ideals into something completely new, often finding inspiration in centuries-old handcrafts. With his organic shapes, inspired by ancient tools such as axe-handles and oars, Wegner made his impact on the artistic movement of the time: Organic Modernism.

The exhibition tells the story of how and why Wegner and Danish design made such an impression in the 1950s throughout America and the rest of the world. What makes Danish design special in relation to German, American and Italian design, for instance? And why is Danish design, and Wegner’s in particular, so popular in Asia today, serving as a model for so many of the greatest designers of our time – such as Jasper Morrison, Naoto Fukasawa, Tadeo Ando and Konstantin Grcic. The exhibition shows not only Wegner’s work, but also some of the most significant post-war Danish and international designers; works of historical inspiration from the Designmuseum Danmark’s collection; and also current international work, inspired by Danish design.

The exhibition is shown from the 3 April 2014 to 2 November 2014 and is accompanied by a richly illustrated book on Wegner’s work, published in Danish by Strandberg Publishing and in English and German by Hatje Cantz Verlag.

The museum, Kunstmuseet i Tønder, also celebrates Hans J. Wegner with an exhibition. For more information please go go: museum-sonderjylland.dk.

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important Danish designer” Hans J. Wegner appeared first on Dezeen.

Architects Mette and Martin Weinberg have overhauled a 1940s cottage in Denmark to create a modern home for their family, complete with timber-lined walls and cosy furnishings.

Weinberg Architects collaborated with fellow Danish architects Friis & Moltke on Villa Weinberg, situating it on a corner plot in Højbjerg, a residential area of Aarhus.

Polished concrete floors feature through the house and while some rooms have been painted white, the main living spaces are lined with oil-treated oak boards.

“We used the wooden boards to obtain a warm, cosy feeling to the living room – a social space,” architect Mette Weinberg told Dezeen. “They also help to form a close relationship to the garden space, in an atmosphere and material overhaul.”

Large windows frame views of the surrounding gardens, where flowerbeds are covered with bark chips to recreate the architects’ dream of a little house in the middle of a forest.

The main bedroom opens out onto a small inner courtyard, while a kitchen, study and extra bedrooms make up the rest of the ground floor.

A combined wooden bookshelf and staircase in the living room leads up to the first floor, where a large study and roof terrace also overlook the garden.

In contrast with the natural wood of the house’s interior, the exterior of the house is clad with black-painted timber panels.

Photography is by Mikkel Mortensen.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Villa Wienberg, Denmark

A quiet heart, a setting sun

Both outside and inside, the atmosphere is cooling and calming. As soon as the foot touches the ground of this protected corner-plot, a special feeling wraps itself around you like a soft shawl: A feeling of being pleasantly, mysteriously alone in one of the great forests of Finland – or perhaps of stepping into a universe, where Yin and Yang finally found their perfect balance and harmony. It is quite difficult to believe that actually you are in a very traditional residential neighbourhood, Højbjerg, situated in suburban Aarhus.

Until recently, this little corner-plot nested a small summer cottage, built during wartime in 1942 and later almost hidden behind tall trees. The cottage has now been integrated into a brand new, tall and very ambitious black beauty.

The walls are planked on the outside and the villa opens to its surroundings with windows that are perfectly proportioned for the double purpose of inviting nature in as well as creating a cozy and cooling private space.

The villa, which has been awarded the City of Aarhus Architecture Prize 2008, playfully breaks the strictly square shape of the plot in a careful orchestration of angles and split-levels.

The way it seems to organically grow into the rich vegetation of pine, temple-tree and rhododendron leaves the baffling impression on the beholder that this villa simply grew out of the ground!

Light and Shadow

It was the joint creative forces and dreams of architects Mette and Martin Wienberg that led to this exciting and untraditional framework around their family-life. Atmosphere was the keyword and contrast was an important tool: By creating a covered entrance in a quite strict style dominated by black wood and concrete, they wanted to enhance the experience of the movement from architectural serenity to the open garden – which is organically structured, but sharply defined by raised sleepers that frame and contrast the soft lawn which lies in their embrace almost like a green lake.

The plants and the trees are essential to the design: All the flowerbeds are strewn with coarse bark-chips in order to enhance the illusion of “The little house in the forest” and the natural mosaic of the foliage creates changing patterns of shadows and filters the light: This couple did not seek the great panorama, but rather a dynamic variety of intriguing views bringing a unique atmosphere to each and every room.

Project name: Villa Wienberg
Location: Aarhus, Denmark
Engineer: Tri-consult A/S
Architect: Friis & Moltke A/S and Wienberg Architects/ www.wienbergarchitects.dk
Area: 184 m2
Construction period: 2007-2008
Text by: Susanne Holte

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Friis & Moltke contains cosy oak-lined rooms appeared first on Dezeen.

Photo essay: British photographer Alastair Philip Wiper toured the interior of one of the largest slaughterhouses in the world to create this series of images documenting how pigs are turned into pork, sausages and bacon (+ slideshow).

Danish Crown is the world’s largest exporter of pork, killing approximately 100,000 pigs a week to cater to the growing global demand for meat. Alastair Philip Wiper visited the company’s abattoir in Horsens to capture a behind-the-scenes look at the entire process, starting at the pens where the pigs arrive and moving through the spaces where the animals are slaughtered, butchered and packaged for sale.

Wiper says he “finds it difficult to tolerate those who love eating meat, but cannot bear to think about, or look at, the slaughter and death of that animal”, so each image in the Danish Crown Slaughterhouse is intended to reveal the entire butchering process, made visible by the transparency and openness of the spaces.

I am not a squeamish person. I love food, I love meat, and I particularly love pork. In an ideal world, we would all get our meat from the guy in our village whose family has lovingly cared for their animals over generations, given the animals the best possible life, fed them only the best food, read them a bed-time story every night and given them kilometres of space to roam free in before being humanely and ceremoniously slaughtered by the patriarch of the family. Unfortunately most of us don’t live in that world, and while there is a strong case for a serious discussion about whether or not we really need to eat, or should be eating, as much meat as we do, that is a discussion for another day.

The reality is that the society we live in craves meat, on a massive scale. Where there is a demand there will be a supply, and finding out how that supply is met is something that all meat-eaters should be interested in. As a food lover, I am firmly of the belief that people should think about, understand and respect their food (that includes vegetables!) and part of that respect is rooted in where the meat on your plate comes from and how it died. I find it difficult to tolerate those who love eating meat, but cannot bear to think about, or look at, the slaughter and death of that animal. It seems disrespectful towards the animal, and if I wanted to get really eggy about it, I’m not sure if such people should be allowed to eat meat at all. So it was with great anticipation that I looked forward to my visit to the Danish Crown slaughterhouse in Horsens, touted as “the most modern slaughterhouse in the world”.

Danish Crown is the world’s largest exporter of pork, supplying pork to customers all over the world; 90 percent of the pork slaughtered in Denmark is exported, with the UK being the biggest market. Completed in 2004, the slaughterhouse at Horsens kills approximately 100,000 pigs per week, making it one of the largest in the world. There are 1,420 people employed there, and the slaughterhouse receives around 150 visitors per day.

The slaughterhouse has been designed with openness in mind; a viewing gallery follows every step of the production, from the pigs arriving, to the slaughter itself, to the butchering and packaging. I was genuinely surprised at the level of openness at the plant; Danish Crown wants to invite people in and say “look, this is how we do it”.

The first part of the process is called the “black” slaughter line, and is in stark contrast with the minimalist, office-like corridors that surround the slaughtering area. We started off in the space where the pigs arrive – holding pens where up to 3,800 pigs (3 and a half hours worth of slaughtering) will sit for 1-2 hours before they are slaughtered. “Listen to that” says my guide, Agnete Poulsen. “Listen to what?” I think. “There are thousands of pigs in here, and you can hardly hear a sound. Have you ever heard the noise that ten pigs can make? It’s incredible. These are very calm pigs, and that’s the way we want them to be. This room has been designed to calm the pigs down before they go into the slaughterhouse. If the pigs are stressed when they are killed, the quality of the meat will not be so good.”

From there, the pigs are gently herded in small groups by a series of moving walls into a gas chamber, where they are rendered unconscious by C02 gas. A minute later, they tumble out of the chamber on to a conveyor belt from where they are strung up by their legs before being stuck in the carotid artery and bleeding to death.

The pigs continue on their journey along a long line, strung up by their legs. They disappear into a cabinet, where an automatic saw chops their body in half. Then a series of workers remove different organs from each side of the body – one lucky guy’s job is to remove the brain, the next one the heart, and so on. Needless to say, there is a lot of blood. As I mentioned earlier, I believe it is important to understand how an animal is butchered, and even try it yourself; but, I think to myself, I couldn’t do this for a living. “Do you psychologically profile the guys who do these jobs? How do you know they won’t crack up after a couple of weeks?” I ask Agnete. “Not at all” she replies. “They get used to it very quickly. You would too. We don’t force people to do this, they are happy to do it. It’s an honest job.”

All of the organs collected in this process move on to different sections of the plant where they will be processed further – there is always a part of the world where something we don’t eat here is a delicacy. From the “black” slaughter line, the pigs are hung for 16 hours in a refrigerated room, before moving on to the next line for general butchering by hand, then packaging, before being loaded on to trucks and whizzed off to far-flung places. At each step of the process, different parts of the pig are stamped, scanned and recorded, so that each piece of meat in the supermarket can be traced right back to the farm that it came from and the time it was slaughtered.

The slaughterhouse at Horsens was truly one of the most fascinating places I have visited on my travels. It is an experience that will leave a mark on my daily life, and help me to understand, just a little, about another important aspect of my food. As you can probably tell, this is not an in-depth exposé of an industry, and my experience is not enough to knowledgeably critique the process of delivering Danish Crown bacon to your breakfast table; nor can I account for the processes of Danish Crown outside what I saw in Horsens. But I was pleasantly surprised by the openness of the plant about its operations and methods, and it is clear that when they designed the slaughterhouse they were thinking ahead in terms of what consumers will want to see from food producers: more transparency.

And while I can’t comment on the conditions of the lives of the pigs before they get to the slaughterhouse (the vast majority of which come from Denmark), I can only make an educated guess that, through my own experience as a resident of Denmark, the laws that govern the treatment of pigs would be about as strict or stricter as they would be anywhere else in the world. Anyone with any knowledge on that would be welcome to chip in. I am happy to admit that I finished my tour with a sausage in the canteen.

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biggest slaughterhouses by Alastair Philip Wiper appeared first on Dezeen.