Opala lamp – Carl Hansen

A prolific furniture designer, Hans Wegner is one of the founding fathers of Scandinavian design. Born in 1914 in Tønder, Denmark, this shoemaker's son completed his apprenticeship as a cabinetmaker at the age of 17 with H.F. Stahlberg, under whose guidance he made his first formal experiments with wood, before moving to Copenhagen at the age of 20 to study at the École des Arts et Métiers from 1936 to 1938, which enabled him to establish himself as an architect.

It was as an architect that the young Hans J. Wegner joined Arne Jacobsen and Erik Møller in Århus. With them, he worked on the design of furniture for the reception hall of the new Århus town hall, in 1940. In the same year, Wegner began collaborating with master cabinetmaker Johannes Hansen, whose technique played a considerable role in the development of Danish furniture. 

Hans J. Wegner set up his own design office in 1943. In 1944, he designed his first “Chinese chair”, inspired by portraits of Danish merchants seated in Ming chairs. One of these chairs, the “Wishbone Chair” (CH24), designed in 1949, was so successful that it has been manufactured continuously since 1950 by Carl Hansen & Son in Odense.

Hans J. Wegner is considered one of Denmark's most creative and productive furniture designers. He has been awarded almost every design prize there is, including the Lunning Prize, the Grand Prix of the Milan Triennale, the Prince Eugen Medal of Sweden and the Danish Eckersberg Medal. Many of the world's great museums pay tribute to him, including New York's Museum of Modern Art and Munich's Die Neue Sammlung, featuring his furniture in their permanent collections.

 Hans J. Wegner died in Denmark in January 2007.

If we had to sum up his life and work in three points, we'd say:

- he was a cabinetmaker as well as a designer, and a master of woodworking techniques

- he brought a natural tenderness and gentleness to functionalism 

- he was a master of seating, creating over 400 chairs and armchairs.