Modern Danish Warehouse pop-up opens in London
The second edition of the Modern Danish Warehouse pop-up store is about to open its doors in London's South Kensington, uniting Denmark's inimitable design legacy and its fine education system in the best possible way. This year the neatly curated store will present a large selection - about 200 pieces - of vintage finds and rare items used in Danish schools over the past few decades with a focus on mid-century modern. From blackboards and benches, to chairs, stools and desks, there will be a wide range of beautifully crafted furniture on offer.
'The first Modern Danish Warehouse happened almost as an experiment but we knew we wanted to do it again,' says Sigmar and DMW founder Nina Hertig. 'For us it is a playground. Its temporary nature gives us a lot of freedom but most of all we want to show that there is a vast amount of furniture that is really well made, beautiful and classic coming from Denmark; furniture that one can buy for a very competitive price.'
Danish schools, it seems, have an enviably stylish heritage. It was none other than seminal Danish architect Arne Jacobsen that designed many of the pieces on sale, almost setting the pace for the whole project.
Highlights at DMW include Jacobsen's original furniture created for his influential Munkegaard School project (1956); an establishment Hertig was lucky enough to attend as a child and one which recently got a much-discussed makeover and extension by local firm Dorte Mandrup. The original school, a low grid-based structure located in the Copenhagen suburb of Dyssegaard, is a classic modernist example of experimental and innovative school architecture. The building, comprising 24 pavilion-type classrooms interconnected through a parallel corridor system, was an inventive school prototype, complete with a strong colour palette, bespoke fittings and detailing that rendered it a truly unique architectural experience.
Also in the store are genuinely rare finds that owe their existence to the host of high quality schools built in the country. Additionally, contemporary contributors have been tasked to create bespoke pieces around the theme for the Warehouse - such as Danish type foundry Playtype (a project by design agency e-Types), which have created letter-inspired items, and Lebanon-based lighting company PSLab, which has produced a series of lights out of industrial heaters.
Lasting for two weeks only, with prices starting from £40, the Modern Danish Warehouse is a pop-up that comes top of the class.
ADDRESS
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London SW3 2AB
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Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).
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