The Copenhague Collection

In collaboration with Hay of Denmark, the brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec have designed a range of furniture for the University of Copenhagen which is now available to the public. This collection resumes an old Scandinavian tradition of targeting specific architecture and specific needs in designing new furniture. Ronan Bouroullec explains “Since the last century, there is a tradition in Denmark of asking a designer to design the chairs when new schools or universities are built. We are proud to be part of the university history".

 

 

The starting point for this series was an old university chair, architect Bernt Pedersen’s trestle chair. This chair is a simple and beautiful chair with an uncomplicated identity. The Bouroullecs' interpretation has upheld the original chair typology (trestle chair) and sought to maintain the compelling simplicity of the original chair. Their intention was to create up-to-date educational furniture that meets the functional needs of a university but allied with greater originality and a more domestic expression.

 

 

According to Ronan Bouroullec the interior can contribute to making students feel at home, and provide a sense of balance: “One of the challenges that universities are facing today is that students do not stay at school after classes. The general aim of the project is to motivate students to stay on campus a little longer. So the idea was to do a chair which could be more domestic than a contract chair". The seat and back are mounted in the centre of the seat creating a highly flexible and resilient comfort – the seat follows the movement of the user. The chair also has a flexible back, which bears similarity to the cantilever chairs, which was first designed by the Bauhaus school in Germany in the 1930’s.

The collection includes a chair, a barstool, two desks and several tables - all of which are available to pre-order now from Aram Store.

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