Arne Jacobsen

1902–1971 · Danish · 10 buildings on the wall

Arne Jacobsen (1902–1971) was a Danish architect and furniture designer, born in Copenhagen, who designed whole buildings down to their furniture. Many of his best-known designs, including the three-legged Ant chair and the Egg and Swan chairs, were made for his own buildings. As a Jewish Dane in the Second World War he fled to Sweden, rowing across the Øresund with help from the Danish resistance.

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The Bellavista housing in Klampenborg (1934) is built of concrete, steel and glass, with open plans and no ornament. Skovshoved Petrol Station nearby (1936) is known for its projecting oval canopy, nicknamed "the Mushroom". With Erik Møller he designed Aarhus City Hall (1941), a concrete building faced in grey Norwegian marble whose 60-metre tower was added after public pressure. The SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen (1960), called the world's first designer hotel: Jacobsen designed everything from the building to the ashtrays and airport buses. At St Catherine's College, Oxford (1962), his buildings of glass, brick and concrete keep the traditional plan around a quadrangle and are listed Grade I. Arne Jacobsen's buildings are studied for treating architecture and furniture as one design.

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