Scan Magazine | Design Profile | Darø
For more than 30 years Darø has created high-quality lamp designs based on durability, practicality and a timeless aesthetic expression.
Lighting the way The dark Nordic winter is the time to shine for Scandinavia’s many talented lighting designers. Good lighting not only enhances the ambiance of a room but also the beauty of the objects it contains, which affects our mood. Designing with that in mind, Danish lamp specialist Darø has created some of Denmark’s most outstanding lamp designs, including Arkiturbine, this year’s winner of the London Design Award. By Signe Hansen | Photos: Darø
In the Nordic countries, lighting is not just a serious business – it is an art form, and this is reflected in several of Darø’s designs. Throughout more than 30 years, the company has designed a range of Denmark’s most popular lamps for homes, workplaces and public venues. Whether new or old, all Darø’s designs reflect the company’s original ambition: to create high-quality products. But the latest designs, like the two award-winning pendants Arkiturbine and Bell+, also reveal something else, something slightly more daring. “Today, we have an uncompromising wish to infuse all of our products with innovative 18 | Issue 84 | January 2016
ideas; we want our products to surprise without shocking,” says director of sales and marketing, Niels Svolgaard, who owns and runs Darø together with Thomas Darø, the third generation of the family to be involved in the firm. “What we aim to create are the classics of the future, unique lamp designs with ideas and elements that will stand the test of time, both when it comes to aesthetics and design as well as durability.”
Danish design Darø’s collection of design lamps, which includes table lamps, floor lamps, pendants and wall lamps, are all 100 per
cent Danish design and the Danish design heritage plays a significant role in the design process. With that follows a strong focus on practicality and sustainability, but nothing is allowed to compromise the overall ambition of creating original, high-quality designs. “We cooperate with a string of highly specialised partners in Denmark and the rest of the world. We do this to ensure that we, in every part of the process, steer clear of practical limitations and narrowminded preconceptions,” explains Svolgaard. “We work with a lot of different materials, and we don’t want to be tied down in any way. But the final production takes place where it has always taken place, in Randers in Eastern Jutland.” All of Darø’s designs come in a range of colours and variations for individual purchase and can be adjusted further to accommodate needs in large-scale projects such as hotels and offices.