Poul Cadovius (1911-2011) was one of the most colourful and successful people in the history of the Danish furniture industry. He was originally educated as an upholsterer but became very interested in design at an early stage, and in 1945 he established his own furniture manufacturing company: Royal System. A few years later, in 1948, he designed the iconic shelving system ROYAL SYSTEM®, followed by the award-winning SYSTEM ULTRA® in 1957 and SYSTEM CADO® in 1960. All three systems were based on a ground-breaking wall-mounted shelving concept, where the idea was to move the furniture off the floor onto the walls, leaving more space in the room.

All his life Poul Cadovius was an exceptional entrepreneur and innovator, and he achieved to take more than 400 patents during his long career. Besides designing furniture Poul Cadovius also owned a boatyard and developed many other different products such as building material and fiberglass components like the well-known (in Denmark) mushroom-formed bus shelter. And then he invented the award-winning and world-renowned System Abstracta, which was used as exhibition halls at the Cologne Furniture Fair in 1962. Poul Cadovius was indeed a man of the world and the king of furniture.