The Designmuseum Denmark () is a museum in
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
for Danish and international design and crafts. It features works of famous Danish designers like
Arne Jacobsen
Arne Emil Jacobsen, Hon. FAIA () 11 February 1902 – 24 March 1971) was a Danish architect and furniture designer. He is remembered for his contribution to architectural functionalism and for the worldwide success he enjoyed with simple we ...
,
Jacob Jensen and
Kaare Klint
Kaare Klint (15 December 1888 – 28 March 1954) was a Danish architect and furniture designer, known as the father of modern Danish furniture design. Style was epitomized by clean, pure lines, use of the best materials of his time and super ...
, who was one of the two architects who remodeled the former
Frederiks Hospital
The royal Frederiks Hospital was Denmark's first hospital in the present-day meaning of the word. It was founded by king Frederik V and financed by the earnings from the Norwegian Postal Service.
The buildings, situated in Bredgade in Copenh ...
(built 1752–57) into a museum in the 1920s. The exhibition also features a variety of Chinese and German
porcelain
Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainl ...
.
The museum was known as the Danish Museum of Art & Design ( da, Kunstindustrimuseet) until 2011 and known as the Danish Museum of Decorative Art prior.
The museum is currently closed for major renovations, and is expected to reopen to the public in early 2022.
History
The museum was founded in 1890 at the initiative of, among others, Industriforeningen. A purpose-built building designed by
Vilhelm Klein
Vilhelm Klein (6 March 1835 – 10 February 1913) was a Danish architect who adopted the Historicist approach, frequently emulating the so-called Rosenborg style and the Italian Renaissance style.
Early life
Born in Copenhagen, Denmark as the ...
and located next to Industriforeningen's premises on
City Hall Square was completed in 1894 and opened to the public the following year. The exhibitions were housed in separate galleries, each dedicated to a particular field such as porcelain, faience, silver, furniture, glass and textiles. This arrangement reflected the primary aim of the museum which was to serve as a source of inspiration for craftsmen and manufacturers by highlighting the very best in craftsmenship and design from different ages.
In 1926 the museum moved to its current building, the defunct
Frederick's Hospital from 1757, a gift from the banker Emil Glückstadt. The architects
Kaare Klint
Kaare Klint (15 December 1888 – 28 March 1954) was a Danish architect and furniture designer, known as the father of modern Danish furniture design. Style was epitomized by clean, pure lines, use of the best materials of his time and super ...
and
Ivar Bentsen had undertaken the necessary alterations and furnishings.
[
]
Library and archives
The museum is home to the largest library in Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...
dedicated to decorative arts and industrial design. Open to the general public, the library is at once a museum library, research library
A research library is a library which contains an in-depth collection of material on one or several subjects.(Young, 1983; p. 188) A research library will generally include an in-depth selection of materials on a particular topic or set of to ...
, and Danish central library within its field. Opening hours are Tuesday–Friday from 11–17. The library contains more than 1,000 journals. The latest issues of the 75 journals and magazines which the museum subscribes to can be read in the library's reading room.
The reading room of the library hosts public lectures on design-related topics which draw upon the collections in both the museum and the library.
The Danish Design Archive and the Poster Collection are located on the museum's first floor.
Furnitureindex
Designmuseum Denmark hosts the Furnitureindex, an online database of Danish furniture from the 20th and 21st centuries. The database is in English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
and contains over 12,000 records. The database was founded in 2000 by Marilyn and Reese Palley as the ''Palley Index Of Danish Furniture: 1900-2000''. Designmuseum Denmark made the database publicly available online in 2003 after it was acquired by the Realdania Foundation.
Auditorium
The museum has a small auditorium on the first floor seating 120 people. It is rented out for lectures, concerts, receptions and other events.
Cultural references
In the first Olsen Gang film, Bredgade 68 is where the Olsen Gang
The ''Olsen Gang'' ( da, Olsen-banden, no, Olsenbanden, german: Die Olsenbande) is a Danish comedy film series created by Danish director Erik Balling and special effects expert Henning Bahs about the eponymous fictional criminal gang. The gang ...
steals the golden statue.
See also
* David Collection
The David Collection ( da, Davids Samling) is a museum of fine and applied art in Copenhagen, Denmark, built around the private collections of lawyer, businessman and art collector C. L. David.
The museum is particularly noted for its collectio ...
* Danish Design Centre
The Danish Design Center (DDC) is Denmark’s national center for design. Established in 1978, DDC is a non-profit foundation under the Danish Ministry of Business, Industry and Financial Affairs. The role of DDC is to promote the use of design in ...
* Danish design
Danish design is a style of functionalistic design and architecture that was developed in mid-20th century. Influenced by the German Bauhaus school, many Danish designers used the new industrial technologies, combined with ideas of simplicity ...
* Danish modern
Danish modern is a style of minimalist furniture and housewares from Denmark associated with the Danish design movement. In the 1920s, Kaare Klint embraced the principles of Bauhaus modernism in furniture design, creating clean, pure lines based ...
* List of museums in Denmark
This is a list of museums in Denmark.
List of museums by visitors
List of museums in Denmark by visitors in 2015
By region Capital region
* Æbelholt Abbey
* Esrum Abbey
* Bornholm Museum
* Bornholm Art Museum
* Bornholm Railway Museum
* N ...
References
External links
Danish Museum of Art & Design: website
Furnitureindex.dk furnitureindex.dk: Danish furniture from the 20th and 21st centuries
{{DEFAULTSORT:Danish Museum of Art and Design
Art museums and galleries in Copenhagen
Decorative arts museums
Modernist architecture in Copenhagen
1890 establishments in Denmark
Art museums established in 1890
Design museums
Art exhibitions in Denmark
Listed hospital buildings in Copenhagen