ARNE JACOBSEN - ARCHITECTUUR EN MEUBELEN
Poul Erik Skriver, Willem Sandberg [Designer]
Poul Erik Skriver, Willem Sandberg [Designer]: ARNE JACOBSEN - ARCHITECTUUR EN MEUBELEN. Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum, 1959. First edition [Catalog 209]. Text in Dutch. Slim quarto. Thick stapled letterpressed wrappers. 16 pp. 10 black and white illustrations. Design by Willem Sandberg. Interior unmarked and very clean. Out-of-print. A nearly fine copy.
7.5 x 10.25 exhibition catalog with 16 pages and 10 black and white illustrations showcasing Arne Jacobsen’s architecture and industrial design up to 1959. Catalog for the exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum from May 15 to June 22, 1959.
"The fundamental factor is proportion. Proportion is precisely what makes the old Greek temples beautiful . . . And when we look at some of the most admired buildings of the Renaissance or the Baroque, we notice that they are all well-proportioned. That is the essential thing." –Arne Jacobsen
Arne Jacobsen (1902-1971) began training as a mason before studying at the Royal Danish Academy of Arts, Copenhagen where he won a silver medal for a chair that was then exhibited at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Art Decoratifs in Paris. Influenced by Le Corbusier, Gunnar Asplund and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Jacobsen embraced a functionalist approach from the outset. He was among the first to introduce modernist ideas to Denmark and create industrial furniture that built upon on its craft-based design heritage.
First among Jacobsen's important architectural commissions was the Bellavista housing project, Copenhagen (1930-1934). Best known and most fully integrated works, are the SAS Air Terminal and the Royal Hotel Copenhagen for which Jacobsen designed every detail from sculptural furnishings such as his elegant Swan and Egg chairs (1957-1958) to textiles, lighting, ashtrays and cutlery.
During the 1960's, Jacobsen's most important work was a unified architectural and interior design scheme for St. Catherine's College, Oxford, which, like his earlier work for the Royal Hotel, involved the design of site-specific furniture. Jacobsen's work remains appealing and fresh today, combining free-form sculptural shapes with the traditional attributes of Scandinavian design, material and structural integrity.
From Center for Book Arts' web site: Willem Sandberg (Dutch, 1897 – 1984) One of the most important figures in Dutch graphic design and a highly influential museum director during his time at the Stedelijk in Amsterdam. The Stedelijk commissioned him, in 1928, to prepare pictorial statistical information for the exhibition 'Work for the Disabled'. Appointed curator of modern art in 1937. During the second world war joined the Dutch resistance and assisted in the production of false identity cards. Became director of the Stedelijk in 1945 and personally designed over 300 catalogues prior to retiring in 1964. From 1964-1968 he was on the Executive committee of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and lectured on visual communication at Harvard 1969-1970. He died in Amsterdam in 1984.