House of Finn Juhl – Nyhavn table & desk

Finn Juhl

Teenager, Finn Juhl (1912-1989) wanted to become an art historian, having a passion for the fine arts since childhood. His father stopped him and Finn Juhl started architectural studies. Later, when his fame as a designer of furniture acquired, he speaks of himself as an autodidact, in reference to this upset vocation that forced him to walk intellectually on a lonely way. His style owes much to this singular trajectory, with its non academic interpretation of art visible in his work. Finn Juhl started his studies in 1930, a key period which saw the birth of modern design and furniture.

His modern offices in central Copenhagen was greeting his visitors with a huge Japanese fish in paper, symbol of imagination. And rather than addressing the design of a furniture from an functional angle, in the classical manner, Finn Juhl approached his work in the manner of a sculptor, seeking the beauty of the volume and shape, life and expressiveness, an approach that, in the 1940s and 1950s, was then completely new. For Finn Juhl, it was clear that furniture could not be limited to function, but should also express an artistic sensibility.

wood

clear lacquered walnut

oiled walnut

clear lacquered oak

oiled oak

white oiled oak

soaped oak

Finn Juhl designed this desk in 1953, after he made the Nyhavn Table for the the firm Bovirke. Its three coloured trays hangs like a floating element under the steel construction of Table. This is very typical of Finn Juhl style, where functional elements are separated to create visual lightness.

As with the FJ Sideboard, the coloured trays are according to Goethe’s colour circles which define harmony of colors and come in two colors way, a yellow - red and a blue. The Cabinet is available in walnut, teak or oak. Suspension fittings are included in burnished steel.