Kristian Vedel Pioneer and idealist (4 of 8) dansk

[Barnestol]

Kristian Vedel was with Nanna Ditzel the first designer in the country that took children's furniture seriously and designed furniture in a simple, modern style, but still on the child's premise. Furniture that was not a copy of the adult's, but took its origin in the way children move on and use furniture to play as well as to sit in. The principle with the slits in Vedel's children's furniture from 1957, that made it possible for the chair to grow with the child, is incidentally the same principle that is used in the popular Tripp Trapp high chair from Stokke. The multi purpose chair, in Vedel's own words, was rewarded with the silver medal at the Triennale in Milan in 1957 and the chair is represented in MoMA's design collection.

Another example of children's furniture is the experimental set Vedel designed for the master cabinetmaker I. Christiansen, which was shown at the Cabinetmaker's Guild's Furniture Exhibition in 1949. The set consisted of a desk with a matching chair. Again, Vedel has considered the growth possibilities in the adjustable chair and added a playful touch in the form of a table leg that continued through the desktop becoming a little hanger for office supplies. The kidney shaped table with three legs is conceived functionally with a desktop in a synthetic, cleaning friendly material.

The Cabinetmaker's Exhibition in 1949 was incidentally an epoch making event for Danish furniture design, because here for the first time one saw the later so famous furniture The Round Chair by Wegner, Børge Mogensen's Shell Chair and The Chieftain's Chair by Finn Juhl.

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