Peter Hvidt (1916–1986) was a Danish architect and furniture designer, co-founder of

Hvidt & Mølgaard Hvidt & Mølgaard was a Copenhagen-based, Danish design and architectural firm which existed from 1944 until 2009. Founded by Peter Hvidt and Orla Mølgaard-Nielsen, it continued to thrive after the founders' retirement but was split in two in 2009, ...

Biography

Hvidt was born 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 ...

in 1916, the son of L. N. Hvidt, president of the Danish Maritime and Commercial Court. After completing his training at the Design School in Copenhagen, he worked at various design firms before setting up his own studio in 1942. In 1944 he opened the

studio which he ran with

Orla Mølgaard-Nielsen Orla Mølgaard-Nielsen (12 September 1907 – 21 October 1993) was a Danish architect and furniture designer. He was born in Aalborg, Denmark. After training at the Aalborg Technical School (1924) and at the Art and Crafts School of the Design M ...

until 1975. They created a number of pioneering sets of furniture including Portex (1945) and Ax (1950), using a laminated technique for production by

Fritz Hansen Fritz Hansen, also known as Republic of Fritz Hansen, is a Danish furniture design company. Designers who have worked for Fritz Hansen include Arne Jacobsen (1902–1971), Poul Kjærholm (1929–1980), Hans J. Wegner (1914–2007) and Piet Hein ...

. The chairs were specially designed for export, economizing on space and packaging requirements for transportation. ''Hvidt & Mølgaard'' increasingly took on architectural assignments (from 1970 together with Hans Kristensen). Projects covered office buildings and factories, including the De Danske Sukkerfabrikker building in Copenhagen (1958), as well as collective housing projects in

Søllerød Søllerød is a suburban district of Rudersdal Municipality in the northern outskirts of Copenhagen, Denmark. The original village, one of the oldest in the area, is perched on Søllerød Hill on the south side of Søllerød Lake. It merged with ...

Hillerød Hillerød () is a Denmark, Danish town with a population of 35,357 (1 January 2022)Birkerød Birkerød () is a town in Rudersdal Municipality in the northern outskirts of Copenhagen, Denmark. It is surrounded by several lakes and small woodlands. Birkerød station is located on the Hillerød radial of the S-train suburban network. Hist ...

(1962–1970), all completed in a light, clear and simple style. The firm also acted as consultants on the new

Little Belt Bridge (1970) The New Little Belt Bridge ( da, Nye Lillebæltsbro) is a suspension bridge that crosses the Little Belt strait between Jutland (Jylland) and the island of Funen (Fyn) in Denmark. The bridge is 1,700 metres long, the main span is 600 metres, th ...

(1970) and the

Vejle Fjord Bridge Vejle Fjord Bridge ( da, Vejlefjordbroen) is a cantilever bridge that spans Vejle Fjord between Mølholm and Nørremarken near the town of Vejle in Denmark. The bridge is 1712 metres long, the longest span is 110 metres, and the maximum cleara ...

(1980), playing an important part in the success of their designs."Peter Hvidt"
''Den Store Danske''. Retrieved 11 November 2011.Finn Monies, "Orla Mølgaard-Nielsen"
''Den Store Danske''. Retrieved 11 November 2011.

Recognition

Hvidt received the Diplome d'Honneur at the

Triennale The Triennale di Milano is a design and art museum in the Parco Sempione in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It is housed in the Palazzo dell'Arte, which was designed by Giovanni Muzio and built between 1931 and 1933; construction was fina ...

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

in 1951 and 1954. His works are represented at the

MOMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; Ang ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, the

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director o ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

and the

Danish Museum of Art & Design The Designmuseum Denmark () is a museum in Copenhagen for Danish and international design and crafts. It features works of famous Danish designers like Arne Jacobsen, Jacob Jensen and Kaare Klint, who was one of the two architects who remodeled ...

in Copenhagen.

References

Danish furniture designers Danish company founders 1916 births 1986 deaths Architects from Copenhagen Designers from Copenhagen Danish modern 20th-century Danish architects {{Denmark-architect-stub

Biography

Recognition

See also

References