Jakob Berg

arnoldsche Art Publishers

ISBN 978-3-89790-630-3

9 783897 906303

The book contains insightful texts by leading Danish design experts and was created at the initiative of Jakob Berg’s personal and professional partner for many years, the Danish textile artist Dorte Østergaard Jakobsen.

Jakob Berg — Furniture will be of interest to all design enthusiasts and is lavishly illustrated with more than 200 models, sketches and photos. Most of the photos were taken by the Danish photographer Dorte Krogh.

Jakob Berg — Furniture

The Danish furniture designer Jakob Berg (1958–2008) was ahead of his time. He not only continued the line from the golden age of mid-century Danish design but expanded on it and fundamentally redefined the approach to function, sustainability and wood types.

This book takes you on a tour of Jakob Berg’s wonderful design universe. From his first oneoffs in the 1980s to his innovative padded furniture, his indoor-outdoor series and the world’s first stacking chair in moulded bamboo — beautiful furniture that has enriched houses and gardens around the world and which has remained as current as ever.

Jakob Berg Editors Dorte Østergaard Jakobsen & Pernille Anker Kristensen

Furni ture

42

MAPS — Room for Immersion. Horsens Art Museum. 2012.

Dorte Østergaard Jakobsen. The exhibition was based on the couple’s shared journey(s).

Above: Jakob Berg’s padded Foam Cradles.

Nigel Goulding’s meditative sound universe flowed throughout the spaces of the exhibition.

Right: The visitors were invited to draw their own travel experiences while sitting at Jakob Berg’s moulded bamboo table. In the background, the textile lengths Nørrebro, New York, Kikhavn and Reine.

42

MAPS — Room for Immersion. Horsens Art Museum. 2012.

Dorte Østergaard Jakobsen. The exhibition was based on the couple’s shared journey(s).

Above: Jakob Berg’s padded Foam Cradles.

Nigel Goulding’s meditative sound universe flowed throughout the spaces of the exhibition.

Right: The visitors were invited to draw their own travel experiences while sitting at Jakob Berg’s moulded bamboo table. In the background, the textile lengths Nørrebro, New York, Kikhavn and Reine.

64

Model of Boat, scale 1:5. 2003. The chair was originally intended to have an exterior wooden shell.

Boat. Padded easy chair. Steel, wood, textile. 2004. Stouby. Boat offers excellent seating comfort and embraces the back perfectly.

The inspiration for the form came from the bow of a boat.

64

Model of Boat, scale 1:5. 2003. The chair was originally intended to have an exterior wooden shell.

Boat. Padded easy chair. Steel, wood, textile. 2004. Stouby. Boat offers excellent seating comfort and embraces the back perfectly.

The inspiration for the form came from the bow of a boat.

76

77

Flood. Prototype. Spacious, modular sofa. Wood, steel, padding, removable upholstery. 1997. Erik Jørgensen Møbelfabrik. Textile: Dorte Østergaard Jakobsen.

76

77

Flood. Prototype. Spacious, modular sofa. Wood, steel, padding, removable upholstery. 1997. Erik Jørgensen Møbelfabrik. Textile: Dorte Østergaard Jakobsen.

Various models 1:5 in foam, cardboard and pinewood, lined up and photographed by Jakob Berg for documentation.

84

85

Various models 1:5 in foam, cardboard and pinewood, lined up and photographed by Jakob Berg for documentation.

84

85

121

25 years ago, the concept of sustainability and a better world was not a fundamental paradigm. In light of 1970s ideals of ecology and community, sustainability was widely regarded as hippie idealism and unrealistic pipe dreams.

Today, all that has changed. We now know that there is more at stake, and non-sustainable behaviour is considered no go. We are all expected to look beyond tradition and habits and to proceed with care for the environment.

This makes Jakob Berg’s exemplary pioneering effort more topical and relevant than ever. He aimed for sustainable awareness and challenged both himself and the world around him, in a largely conservative time.

Throughout his career he took on a wide range of sustainability aspects in relation to furniture design. He insisted that the companies he worked with use FSC®-certified wood, and he experimented with material reduction, recycling and new materials, such as bamboo.

His fascination with bamboo as a material in furniture making was based on its natural properties, including its potential for offering much greater strength and carrying capacity than wood. He also saw the potential of bamboo cultivation as a driver of social change.

An exotic species of grass

Top: Danish Art Workshops in 1997. Moulding and laminating bamboo strips for the easy chair, which weighs only 4 kg.

Bottom: Experiments with moulding and laminating in Bali in 1997.

Jakob Berg’s interest in bamboo arose in the mid 1990s. At the time, there were few industrial products made of this exotic species of grass; almost everything was hand-made. His vision revolved around industrializing production, designing furniture that could be mass-produced and sold on Western markets and finding a sustainable alternative to the use of wood in furniture production, in visible as well as concealed components.

At the time, bamboo was a fairly unknown material in furniture design. Most of the furniture we used to call bamboo furniture was actually not made of bamboo but of rattan: a species of grass that belongs to the palm family and which is solid, rather than hollow, and thus well-suited for bending.

Bamboo, on the other hand, is hollow and comes in a wide range of thicknesses and lengths. It is difficult to bend, precisely because it is hollow and thus prone to breaking. Hence, bamboo furniture typically does not consist of bent elements but of straight sections that are stacked and constructed in various ways to make furniture.

Today, there is a huge range of bamboo for use in construction, flooring and interior design objects, such as trays, bowls, organizer boxes and cutlery, all made of laminated or spun bamboo. Only in recent years have a small number of production units emerged that integrate technologies and tools for bending and lamination, thus applying methods in line with the approaches Jakob Berg was experimenting with more than 20 years ago.

Robinson in the bamboo hut In 1997, Jakob Berg and Dorte Østergaard Jakobsen were invited to Bali by the Environmental Bamboo Foundation (EBF) and its founder, the late Irish interior designer Linda Garland.

In addition to sustainable bamboo projects, today she is also known for having created luxurious, tropical holiday residences for world stars like Mick Jagger and David Bowie. EBF’s mission, however, was to develop new applications and export opportunities for bamboo and to provide an alternative to tropical hardwood in furniture making. Jakob Berg writes about his stay in Bali in the article ‘Bambus’ (Bamboo) in the magazine Rum og Form (Space and Form):

121

25 years ago, the concept of sustainability and a better world was not a fundamental paradigm. In light of 1970s ideals of ecology and community, sustainability was widely regarded as hippie idealism and unrealistic pipe dreams.

Today, all that has changed. We now know that there is more at stake, and non-sustainable behaviour is considered no go. We are all expected to look beyond tradition and habits and to proceed with care for the environment.

This makes Jakob Berg’s exemplary pioneering effort more topical and relevant than ever. He aimed for sustainable awareness and challenged both himself and the world around him, in a largely conservative time.

Throughout his career he took on a wide range of sustainability aspects in relation to furniture design. He insisted that the companies he worked with use FSC®-certified wood, and he experimented with material reduction, recycling and new materials, such as bamboo.

His fascination with bamboo as a material in furniture making was based on its natural properties, including its potential for offering much greater strength and carrying capacity than wood. He also saw the potential of bamboo cultivation as a driver of social change.

An exotic species of grass

Top: Danish Art Workshops in 1997. Moulding and laminating bamboo strips for the easy chair, which weighs only 4 kg.

Bottom: Experiments with moulding and laminating in Bali in 1997.

Jakob Berg’s interest in bamboo arose in the mid 1990s. At the time, there were few industrial products made of this exotic species of grass; almost everything was hand-made. His vision revolved around industrializing production, designing furniture that could be mass-produced and sold on Western markets and finding a sustainable alternative to the use of wood in furniture production, in visible as well as concealed components.

At the time, bamboo was a fairly unknown material in furniture design. Most of the furniture we used to call bamboo furniture was actually not made of bamboo but of rattan: a species of grass that belongs to the palm family and which is solid, rather than hollow, and thus well-suited for bending.

Bamboo, on the other hand, is hollow and comes in a wide range of thicknesses and lengths. It is difficult to bend, precisely because it is hollow and thus prone to breaking. Hence, bamboo furniture typically does not consist of bent elements but of straight sections that are stacked and constructed in various ways to make furniture.

Today, there is a huge range of bamboo for use in construction, flooring and interior design objects, such as trays, bowls, organizer boxes and cutlery, all made of laminated or spun bamboo. Only in recent years have a small number of production units emerged that integrate technologies and tools for bending and lamination, thus applying methods in line with the approaches Jakob Berg was experimenting with more than 20 years ago.

Robinson in the bamboo hut In 1997, Jakob Berg and Dorte Østergaard Jakobsen were invited to Bali by the Environmental Bamboo Foundation (EBF) and its founder, the late Irish interior designer Linda Garland.

In addition to sustainable bamboo projects, today she is also known for having created luxurious, tropical holiday residences for world stars like Mick Jagger and David Bowie. EBF’s mission, however, was to develop new applications and export opportunities for bamboo and to provide an alternative to tropical hardwood in furniture making. Jakob Berg writes about his stay in Bali in the article ‘Bambus’ (Bamboo) in the magazine Rum og Form (Space and Form):

127

Encounter with the world After the exhibition at Designmuseum Danmark, Jakob Berg’s work drew great attention. He was subsequently invited to promote awareness of bamboo, sustainability and design possibilities by, among others, Rhodes Island School of Design in the United States and Design Principal Janak Mistry of the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, India.

The Danish entrepreneur Peder Kolind also knocked on Jakob Berg and Dorte Østergaard Jakobsen’s door in Vanløse to invite them to Costa Rica. Kolind was excited about the possibilities of bamboo and wanted to show the designer couple the 35 km2 of land he had recently acquired with a plan to grow bamboo and make furniture. However, this dream of establishing a bamboo furniture production was never realized. As Jakob Berg wrote: ‘I went to Costa Rica, where we examined what it would take to grow bamboo, but it proved to be much too demanding. It would take a staff of 500 to tend the bamboos, so we ended up making wooden furniture instead.’ (2) Establishing a bamboo plantation is no easy matter. Bamboo growing is best and most efficiently done where the growers live and have knowledge and experience with soil, growth and harvest.

That was not the only challenge facing the promotion of bamboo in the furniture industry. Bamboo is just as costly to process as more traditional materials. Hence, bamboo furniture has the same retail price as wooden furniture.

Here too, bamboo has an image problem, as many end users expect bamboo furniture to be cheaper than furniture made of wood. Moreover, production requires deep insight into the properties of bamboo. Among other issues, the tension of bamboo varies greatly from one harvest to the next, and there is a high risk of give when the material is taken out of the moulds.

The world’s first stacking chair in moulded bamboo The stay in Bali and the subsequent international interest in Jakob Berg’s innovative approach to materials and sustainability marked the beginning of a design practice with intensive travel activity.

Among other designs, Jakob Berg sketched a stackable dining chair to be made of moulded bamboo. In 2006, he came into contact with the manufacturer Viet House Bamboo in Ho Chi Minh City, who was interested in a collaboration aimed both at upgrading the factory’s technology to produce moulded, laminated bamboo furniture and at developing a product line. The initial prototypes were ready that same year: a dining table and a moulded laminated stackable dining chair in bamboo. Jakob Berg had launched a global innovation: ‘Since 1997, when I spent two months in Bali working with laminated, form-bent bamboo, I have wanted to make designs in laminated bamboo. (...) This chair is the first stacking chair in form-bent bamboo ever made.’ (3) In 2007, the chair was presented in Jakob Berg’s solo exhibition Inside/Outside at the Danish Design Centre and, later that year, at the Biennale for Craft & Design at the Trapholt museum of modern art and design. Next, he worked on a further development of the stacking chair.

His aim was to create a more stringent expression, minimize the use of materials and simplify the manufacturing process. The final design was ready in November 2007. The chair now appeared with very precise dimensions and had preserved its soft, dynamic and elegant character.

Apart from the progressive choice of material the chair joins the linear account of classic Danish furniture design with all its aesthetic and functional qualities. The elegant joints and the encounter of the components and the negative spaces that arise in between them are testimony to an extremely strong grasp of form and a holistic approach, and the result is a chair that almost seems to have been cast in a single irrevocable form. The lightness and the elegant joints are repeated in the table and add a graceful organic quality to the expression that results from the dialogue between the furniture components.

127

Encounter with the world After the exhibition at Designmuseum Danmark, Jakob Berg’s work drew great attention. He was subsequently invited to promote awareness of bamboo, sustainability and design possibilities by, among others, Rhodes Island School of Design in the United States and Design Principal Janak Mistry of the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, India.

The Danish entrepreneur Peder Kolind also knocked on Jakob Berg and Dorte Østergaard Jakobsen’s door in Vanløse to invite them to Costa Rica. Kolind was excited about the possibilities of bamboo and wanted to show the designer couple the 35 km2 of land he had recently acquired with a plan to grow bamboo and make furniture. However, this dream of establishing a bamboo furniture production was never realized. As Jakob Berg wrote: ‘I went to Costa Rica, where we examined what it would take to grow bamboo, but it proved to be much too demanding. It would take a staff of 500 to tend the bamboos, so we ended up making wooden furniture instead.’ (2) Establishing a bamboo plantation is no easy matter. Bamboo growing is best and most efficiently done where the growers live and have knowledge and experience with soil, growth and harvest.

That was not the only challenge facing the promotion of bamboo in the furniture industry. Bamboo is just as costly to process as more traditional materials. Hence, bamboo furniture has the same retail price as wooden furniture.

Here too, bamboo has an image problem, as many end users expect bamboo furniture to be cheaper than furniture made of wood. Moreover, production requires deep insight into the properties of bamboo. Among other issues, the tension of bamboo varies greatly from one harvest to the next, and there is a high risk of give when the material is taken out of the moulds.

The world’s first stacking chair in moulded bamboo The stay in Bali and the subsequent international interest in Jakob Berg’s innovative approach to materials and sustainability marked the beginning of a design practice with intensive travel activity.

Among other designs, Jakob Berg sketched a stackable dining chair to be made of moulded bamboo. In 2006, he came into contact with the manufacturer Viet House Bamboo in Ho Chi Minh City, who was interested in a collaboration aimed both at upgrading the factory’s technology to produce moulded, laminated bamboo furniture and at developing a product line. The initial prototypes were ready that same year: a dining table and a moulded laminated stackable dining chair in bamboo. Jakob Berg had launched a global innovation: ‘Since 1997, when I spent two months in Bali working with laminated, form-bent bamboo, I have wanted to make designs in laminated bamboo. (...) This chair is the first stacking chair in form-bent bamboo ever made.’ (3) In 2007, the chair was presented in Jakob Berg’s solo exhibition Inside/Outside at the Danish Design Centre and, later that year, at the Biennale for Craft & Design at the Trapholt museum of modern art and design. Next, he worked on a further development of the stacking chair.

His aim was to create a more stringent expression, minimize the use of materials and simplify the manufacturing process. The final design was ready in November 2007. The chair now appeared with very precise dimensions and had preserved its soft, dynamic and elegant character.

Apart from the progressive choice of material the chair joins the linear account of classic Danish furniture design with all its aesthetic and functional qualities. The elegant joints and the encounter of the components and the negative spaces that arise in between them are testimony to an extremely strong grasp of form and a holistic approach, and the result is a chair that almost seems to have been cast in a single irrevocable form. The lightness and the elegant joints are repeated in the table and add a graceful organic quality to the expression that results from the dialogue between the furniture components.

Camping in style Camping was another holiday form that Jakob Berg had his eye on. In relation to the strategy of moving mass furniture out of its low-status zone, the camp site aesthetic was a perfect task. There is little style or design in the section for camping equipment, and to Jakob Berg, this represented a ripe market opportunity: ‘Why should camping always have to involve chairs with striped plastic seats and aluminium tube frames? Could we not make it a little more exclusive, using stainless steel and hardwood? Especially if the furniture still meets the same requirements for compactness (collapsibility) and transportability.’ (7) That thought led to the Spin series (2005) with a lightweight table that folds up to a height of just 7 cm and a folding chair that joins the table to form an exclusive camping set in teak and steel. Unlike the often back-breaking traditional camping furniture, the folding chair even has armrests and offers excellent seating comfort.

Back home in the garden, the Spin stacking chair and an outdoor kitchen trolley in stainless steel with wooden trays and a recessed bowl in the terrazzo tabletop await. For anyone wanting to throw a garden party, Jakob Berg not only designed several proposals for outdoor kitchens but also accessories, including garden torches and a Weber BBQ table. Or how about an adjustable BBQ, complete with a chair for the BBQ master?

The Spin chair was further developed to make Rainbow (2005) with a powder-coated frame and multi-coloured plastic cord. Like Spin, Rainbow was also designed primarily for outdoor living, where it offers a refreshing alternative to the cult garden chair with coloured spaghetti string that had its heyday during the 1970s.

Technical drawing of the Spin chair, the precursor of Rainbow (right).

Spin stacking Chair 1,5x16x16mm steel teak slats

designed by: Jakob Berg

side, front,top: 1:10

159

Rainbow. Outdoor stacking chair. Steel, wood, plastic.

2005. DAFI Tropicdane. Jakob Berg’s reinterpretation of the classic garden chair with coloured spaghetti string. The rectangular steel armrests match the angular, minimalist design.

Camping in style Camping was another holiday form that Jakob Berg had his eye on. In relation to the strategy of moving mass furniture out of its low-status zone, the camp site aesthetic was a perfect task. There is little style or design in the section for camping equipment, and to Jakob Berg, this represented a ripe market opportunity: ‘Why should camping always have to involve chairs with striped plastic seats and aluminium tube frames? Could we not make it a little more exclusive, using stainless steel and hardwood? Especially if the furniture still meets the same requirements for compactness (collapsibility) and transportability.’ (7) That thought led to the Spin series (2005) with a lightweight table that folds up to a height of just 7 cm and a folding chair that joins the table to form an exclusive camping set in teak and steel. Unlike the often back-breaking traditional camping furniture, the folding chair even has armrests and offers excellent seating comfort.

Back home in the garden, the Spin stacking chair and an outdoor kitchen trolley in stainless steel with wooden trays and a recessed bowl in the terrazzo tabletop await. For anyone wanting to throw a garden party, Jakob Berg not only designed several proposals for outdoor kitchens but also accessories, including garden torches and a Weber BBQ table. Or how about an adjustable BBQ, complete with a chair for the BBQ master?

The Spin chair was further developed to make Rainbow (2005) with a powder-coated frame and multi-coloured plastic cord. Like Spin, Rainbow was also designed primarily for outdoor living, where it offers a refreshing alternative to the cult garden chair with coloured spaghetti string that had its heyday during the 1970s.

Technical drawing of the Spin chair, the precursor of Rainbow (right).

Spin stacking Chair 1,5x16x16mm steel teak slats

designed by: Jakob Berg

side, front,top: 1:10

159

Rainbow. Outdoor stacking chair. Steel, wood, plastic.

2005. DAFI Tropicdane. Jakob Berg’s reinterpretation of the classic garden chair with coloured spaghetti string. The rectangular steel armrests match the angular, minimalist design.

Rainbow

213

Stackable outdoor chair.

Steel, wood, plastic. 2005.

Rainbow has its conceptual origins in the outdoor series Spin from 2005. The chair is powder-coated with seat and back in plastic cord.

Here, Jakob Berg upgraded the garden furniture category with a modern expression in rainbow colours. Like the wooden Sunqueen chair, Rainbow opens up to embrace the user, but Rainbow has a more raw expression due to the use of square tube steel in its construction.

2005

Rainbow

213

Stackable outdoor chair.

Steel, wood, plastic. 2005.

Rainbow has its conceptual origins in the outdoor series Spin from 2005. The chair is powder-coated with seat and back in plastic cord.

Here, Jakob Berg upgraded the garden furniture category with a modern expression in rainbow colours. Like the wooden Sunqueen chair, Rainbow opens up to embrace the user, but Rainbow has a more raw expression due to the use of square tube steel in its construction.

2005

Easy

215

Easy chair and footstool.

Soap-finished oak, textile.

SC Møbler produced the prototype in 2007.

Schou Andersen Møbelfabrik took over production in 2009.

Easy is a quintessential easy chair. Jakob Berg designed the profile of the backrest to eliminate the need for a neck rest cushion.

The beautiful joints and details of this easy chair are testimony to the exquisite craftsmanship that went into its making. Jakob Berg wrote about the chair that ‘Easy’s tapered back and wide armrests lend the chair a supple expression, like a predator ready to pounce.’

2007

Easy

215

Easy chair and footstool.

Soap-finished oak, textile.

SC Møbler produced the prototype in 2007.

Schou Andersen Møbelfabrik took over production in 2009.

Easy is a quintessential easy chair. Jakob Berg designed the profile of the backrest to eliminate the need for a neck rest cushion.

The beautiful joints and details of this easy chair are testimony to the exquisite craftsmanship that went into its making. Jakob Berg wrote about the chair that ‘Easy’s tapered back and wide armrests lend the chair a supple expression, like a predator ready to pounce.’

2007

Thanks to Altanbutikken for loan of the benches Sunqueen and Mikado, Grete and Søren for loan of garden for photo shoot, Steen Møller Rasmussen for loan of Wipala chairs, Sofie Astrid Olsson for loan of Grass chairs, David Harlang for help with repairing and photographing models. For collaboration and photos: DAFI/Carl Hansen & Søn, Feelgood Designs, Findahl by Hammel, Plycollection, Schou Andersen Møbler, Skagerak, Tarmeko and Karen and David Mintz of Nordicbydesign.

Special thanks to Nigel Goulding for music compositions, outstanding support and friendship.

And finally, thanks to everyone who patiently listened and helped us keep our spirits up and maintain a cool head in the difficult task of selecting which of Jakob’s many, many designs and drawings to include in this book.