Illums Bolighus is a retailer of household furnishings based 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 ...

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

. The original Illums Bolighus flagship store is located at

Amagertorv Amagertorv (English: Amager Square), today part of the Strøget pedestrian zone, is often described as the most central square in central Copenhagen, Denmark. Second only to Gammeltorv, it is also one of the oldest, taking its name from the Amage ...

10 in central Copenhagen. The company was in 2005 acquired by an investor group headed by CEO Henrik Ypkendanz and has since then opened a number of new stores in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Germany.

History

Kaj Dessau’s BO, 1928-1941

Illums Bolighus was founded under the name BO in 1925 by Danish entrepreneur Kaj Dessau. The store on

Strøget Strøget () is a pedestrian, car free shopping area in Copenhagen, Denmark. This popular tourist attraction in the centre of town is one of the longest pedestrian shopping streets in Europe at 1.1 km. Located at the centre of the old city o ...

opened in 1928. Brita Drewsen, a Swedish born designer, acted as an artistic consultant. With its arranged interiors which combined furniture with textiles, appointments and artworks (for instance sculptures by

Kay Nielsen Kay Rasmus Nielsen (March 12, 1886 – June 21, 1957) was a Danish illustrator who was popular in the early 20th century, the Golden Age of Illustration which lasted from when Daniel Vierge and other pioneers developed printing technology to the ...

), the store introduced a concept which had not previously been seen.

Illums Bolighus

The store was renamed Illums Bolighus in 1941 when it was purchased by the owners of the nearby A.C. Illum department store. The present building was designed in 1961 by Kay Kørbing. Illums Bolighus was later owned first by

Carlsberg Group Carlsberg A/S (; ) is a Danish multinational brewer. Founded in 1847 by J. C. Jacobsen, the company's headquarters is in Copenhagen, Denmark. Since Jacobsen's death in 1887, the majority owner of the company has been the Carlsberg Foundation. T ...

and later by the private equity fund

Axcel Axcel is a leading Nordic private equity firm with offices in Stockholm and Copenhagen. Since its foundation in 1994, Axcel has made 68 platform investments and today the firm owns 19 companies across all four Nordic countries. Axcel invests in ...

. Illums Bolighus was in 2005 sold to a group of five investors headed by CEO Henrik Ypkendanz.

Locations

Denmark

The Illums Bolighus flagship store in Copenhagen is located at

10. In Copenhagen, Illums Bolighus has also opened outlets in

Copenhagen Airport Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup ( da, Københavns Lufthavn, Kastrup, ; ) is an international airport serving Copenhagen, Denmark, Zealand, the Øresund Region, and southern Sweden including Scania. It is the second largest airport in the Nordic coun ...

and

Tivoli Gardens Tivoli Gardens, also known simply as Tivoli, is an amusement park and pleasure garden in Copenhagen, Denmark. The park opened on 15 August 1843 and is the third-oldest operating amusement park in the world, after Dyrehavsbakken in nearby Klam ...

. It has also opened a store in

Aarhus Aarhus (, , ; officially spelled Århus from 1948 until 1 January 2011) is the second-largest city in Denmark and the seat of Aarhus Municipality. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and approximately northwest ...

Norway

Illums Bolighus opened its first store abroad in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

in 2005. It was followed by a store over three floors on the main shopping street in

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula of ...

in 2013. A new flagship store opened in Oslo in 2017.

Sweden

The first store in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

opened in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

in October 2010. In 2012, a

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal populat ...

store was opened in the new shopping centre Emporia. A second store in Stockholm, now in the

Mall of Scandinavia Westfield Mall of Scandinavia is a shopping mall located in Solna in Stockholm, Sweden. It was inaugurated on November 12, 2015, and is the second largest mall in the Nordic countries with 224 stores, many of them with double-height storefront ...

, opened in 2015.

Germany

On 1 November 2016, Illums Bolighus opened a 1,500 square metre store in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

References

External links

Official website

Source
{{coord missing, Denmark Furniture companies of Denmark Retail companies based in Copenhagen Shops in Copenhagen Danish companies established in 1925 Companies based in Copenhagen Municipality