What Denmark Means to Me

I was asked by CC (Copenhagen Contemporary), often called the city's most exciting art space today, to design an installation using waste timber and bricks called “Earth | Tree” (photo), and gave a keynote speech exploring my involvement with Denmark.

For some reason, I have had an especially deep relationship with Denmark. I designed the New Hans Christian Andersen Museum (photo, 2022) for the nationally renowned author, and the Water Culture House (photo) is being built as a new monument next to the opera house in the center of Copenhagen. And this time I was asked to do an installation by the CC. When I thought about the reasons that Denmark is such a good match for the way I work, I realized this stems from the things I was taught by my mentor Tetsuo Matsumoto about product design and furniture. This memory eventually led me to Isamu Kenmochi, a pioneer in industrial design in Japan and Matsumoto's former boss (Matsumoto served as the president of Kenmochi Design Associates for many years).

When I was a student during the latter half of the 1970s, I honestly thought that the architecture of the era was boring. Other than the stimulating encounters with Yoshichika Uchida and Hiroshi Hara, two architects known for being slightly unconventional, I was fed up with the education I was receiving in college. I was also weary of the pedantic, theoretically-armed "box" architecture of Isozaki and Kurokawa, who had become disillusioned with the Metabolism movement.

The product design class taught by Professor Tetsuo Matsumoto was the only class that I really enjoyed in college. In particular, the hands-on workshop where we crafted objects from a piece of rosewood was the most brilliant time.

Tetsuo Matsumoto and Isamu Kenmochi were both designers who were significantly influenced by Denmark. Working in parallel with Kenzo Tange, they were the most serious about the major theme of creating the type of design appropriate for post-war Japan, passionate about rebuilding the country. What they sought to oppose was the Mingei (Art of the People) movement which started before the war, and the Sori Yanagi style that followed it. Matsumoto and Kenmochi looked at the possibility of product design that was light, rational, open, and directly connected to contemporary production principles, which were suitable for post-war democracy, while being deeply rooted in the location of Japan. Danish design represented by the furniture designer Hans Wegner was the thing that provided the largest number of hints to them, and not Italy or the United States.

In addition to being different from Italian design, Danish design is also different from other Scandinavian design because it is rooted in a type of communitarianism and socialism that runs deep throughout the history of Denmark. This originated with the loss to Prussia in the 19th century (Second Schleswig War), in which Denmark lost a large amount of territory. As a result, the nation abandoned its expansionist, maritime military power descended from the Vikings, leading to the formation of a new national character. Denmark shifted to a focus on internal enrichment as a small nation and community enhancement, placing special emphasis on education, agriculture, and the quality of life.

Their change can be considered to be similar to the transformation of Japan because of its defeat in the Second World War. People at the time pondered whether it was possible for the “Macho Japan” before the war, which was the basis of the Mingei movement, to be transformed into a small community-based Japan that becomes the basis of production activity and mutual cooperation. It seems this mindset dominated Matsumoto and Kenmochi with even greater impact than that of Kenzo Tange.

I felt this encounter was something fateful. When I encountered the community-oriented, small-oriented vision of Kenmochi and other associates, after having been in continued conflict with my father who had strong center-oriented, Mingei-oriented views in every situation from our outlook on life to the taste of our living spaces, I immediately understood their philosophy, and deeply empathized with this vision.

Perhaps, in a roundabout way, this encounter connected me to Denmark. Feeling the presence of such a large circle of life, I talked with the people of Denmark there until late at night while enjoying delicious vegetables.