Larry Tran: Poul Kjaerholm and his masterpiece: "Hammock Chair" (PK 24)

Poul Kjaerholm, photographed around 1958

About the Designer: POUL KJAERHOLM

Born in 1907 in northern Jutland, Poul Kjaerholm wanted to be a painter, but his father insisted that he learn a more practical trade. He apprenticed with a master craftsman, Thorvald Grønbech, and in 1948 enrolled in the School of Arts and Crafts, in Copenhagen, where he studied under Hans Wegner, a key player in the Danish Modern movement, and Jørn Utzon, the industrial designer. Kjaerholm’s idols were the Dutch designer and architect Gerrit Rietveld, the modern master builder Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and the American designer Charles Eames. Like many young designers, he wanted to make furniture that would be mass-produced and affordable

But Kjaerholm was too much of a perfectionist to stay that course. In 1955, when Christensen, a distinguished cabinetmaker in Copenhagen, was looking for a designer to help his company break away from producing only cabinetry, Wegner recommended his best student, Kjaerholm. Thus was launched a career-making partnership. Over the next 25 years, Kjaerholm created about one piece a year for Christensen. These were manufactured in quantities ranging from a handful to a few thousand. Once he had embarked on his career as a furniture maker, Kjaerholm’s relationship with Christensen was exclusive, although other companies produced his furniture after his death, including Kjaerholm Productions, established by his son in 2004.

An elaborate system was developed to identify his products. Each furniture type was associated with a series of 10 numbers, and each piece of that type bore one of those numbers preceded by the initials PK. Thus PK 0 through 9 denote small chairs with no armrests; PK 10 through 19, small chairs with armrests; and so on.

"Hammock Chair" or PK 24 Lounge Chair (1965)

For years, Kjaerholm was mostly appreciated among architects. Minimalist architect John Pawson, an early collector of Kjaerholm, recalls being seduced by the work when he was a student in the late 1970s and saw a photograph in the Italian design magazine Domus. It was an image of the PK-24 chaise longue designed in 1965—an elegant swoop of rattan balanced on a stainless-steel frame with a leather bolster held in place by a steel-bar counterbalance in a gesture of ineffable delicacy. “It had more sex appeal than furniture by Mies,” Pawson says.

The PK24 chaise longue chair, with its easy curves and organic shape, stands out as perhaps the most recognizable chair in Poul Kjærholm’s work. Inspiration for this chair comes from the Rococo period and the French chaise longue – long chair – that featured the same curve and size. The chair is a prime and almost extreme example of Kjærholm’s principle of designing with independent elements. Consequently, the chair has no physical connection between the main parts, which are instead kept together by gravity and the friction between the elements. Kjærholm also labelled the PK24 the “Hammock Chair” to stress that the chair functioned by suspending the body between two points. The base of the PK24 is in satin-brushed stainless steel, the seat is available in wicker and leather, both versions includes a leather headrest.

Sources: http://www.artinfo.com/, http://en.wikipedia.org/, http://www.fritzhansen.com/.