PK80

A historic Danish design company, over the course of its 140 years, thanks to collaboration with far-sighted designers and architects such as Arne Jacobsen, Verner Panton, Hans J. Wegner and Poul Kjærholm, Fritz Hansen has produced a rich portfolio of furnishings such as tables, chairs and armchairs, now considered design “classics” and identified as true timeless icons such as the Egg and Swan armchairs.

Poul Kjærholm was a Danish architect and designer. He trained as a carpenter and later studied at the Danish School of Arts and Crafts. He developed an interest in steel, which he considered a material with the same artistic refinement as other natural materials: he is in fact remembered today for his predilection towards this metal, in contrast to the use of wood preferred by his Scandinavian colleagues. He worked for Fritz Hansen for about a year, for which he designed a series of chair prototypes. In 1955 he established a collaboration with the manufacturer Ejvind Kold Christensen, which lasted until his death in 1980. A few years later, in 1982, Fritz Hansen decided to take over the production and sale of the Kjærholm Collection, a collection with an aura of exclusivity that was developed by the designer from 1951 to 1967.