Copenhagen’s 3 Days of Design is a much loved moment on the international design circuit. The festival started in 2013 as a small celebration of Scandi furniture and lighting, but grows each year. This year’s 3DD was a citywide event divided into eight districts which hosted around 500 brands from across Europe and Asia. Products launched included everything from duvets to chopsticks. The sun shone on the brunches, parties, installations and exhibitions, and lots of the visitors (over 60,000 people attended 3DD) stopped for a dip in Copenhagen Harbour between appointments. Of all the design events, 3DD is the one that really puts the fun into furniture. Here’s what we learnt this year.
Petr Krejčí
Wooden it be nice
Natural materials are remarkable. For a moment of calm away from the hubbub of the festival, the exhibition Wood For The Trees in the Christianshavn District was a great place to sit. Designed for the American Hardwood Export Council by studio Mitre & Mondays, the show featured beautiful long wooden benches – courtesy of British furnituremakers Benchmark – that gently rocked as you sat contemplating the display of yellow birch, hard maple and cherry planks artfully strung around the hall. Elsewhere at the festival, it was the paper mulberry that gave rise to great design. At Japanmade, the Japanese paper workshop Naowashi showed amazing vases made from the tough thin paper that comes from the mulberry bush. They looked like rock but felt like paper which did weird things to the brain when you touched them.
Alice Fisher
Party time
There were brunches and cocktails across Copenhagen for 3DD, but a few events stood out. Paula Gerbase, Georg Jensen’s creative director, took a hands-on approach to launching their At Play collection of silver toys and games equipment. Gerbase took on all comers at hoopla on the Georg Jensen games lawn, using a set of wooden blocks decorated with silver. Anyone who beat her could claim one of the collection’s silver yoyos. Few managed to win their prize.
Finnish glassware house Ittala worked with aluminium brand Hydro to create a pavilion shaped like its iconic Aalto vase in the harbourside Ofelia Plads. There was brilliant sunshine for the 3pm opening drinks on Wednesday and that seemed to be the moment most people had their first drink of the day.
Special mention also goes to the Vipp conversation pit. Kitchen brand Vipp has become as famous for its beautiful guesthouses as for its cabinetry and countertops. For this year’s 3DD Vipp collaborated with Spanish design studio Mesura to make an outsized conversation pit – a swimming-pool sized cushioned area in their showroom, complete with a ladder to climb in.
Fritz Hansen
There will be oxblood
Definitely the colour of the show – oxblood cropped up in lots of different forms. Fritz Hansen used it in a collaboration with audio brand Technics. After being surprised to see their iconic lamps used in DJ booths in the clubs and listening bars of Kyoto and Seoul, Fritz Hansen’s creative director Els Van Hoorebeeck worked with Technics to bring the look home, creating a turntable and limited edition Kaiser Idell lamp for a listening bar installation at 3DD. Both were coloured this rich shade of burgundy. British designer Tom Dixon, who took over the Egmont carpark for the festival, displayed his glossy Mill lamp in the juicy red brown hue. Finally sustainable design studio Crude also included an eye-catching sofa draped in oxblood leather at their show at the Other Circle showcase.
Eldvarm
I want one
Amongst all the magic and mastery of a design fair, there are always products you see and imagine in your home, a home which to be honest doesn’t have space for a conversation pit or even a modular sofa. There’s always a special charm about seeing these pieces that could work in any domestic setting. At this year’s 3DD, for me these products were Tekla’s exquisite and patchwork quilts and Salvo’s customised office chairs. Both took something familiar and made it special. Also Eldvarm’s beautiful fireplace poker set and candlesticks. Louise Varre, Eldvarm’s founder, talks in such a thoughtful way about the psychological effect of sitting by an open fire and her exquisite products are just as considered.
Line Thiet Klein
And finally
While Scandi chic has much more to it than wood and white; a lot of it is wood and white. So at the HQ of St Leo, the ecological mineral paint and furniture house, there was a vivid treat after all the restrained design. Spanish artist and designer Jaime Hayón took over the St Leo gallery space with an exhibition of colourful, surreal and mesmerising work made as a tribute to his late mother, Raquel Benchimol. Hayón is well known for his surrealist ceramics and these jostled for space alongside sculpture, furniture – including his mother’s chair – and colourful paintings. The jumble of personal effects and photos shown with the art really captured the bond between mother and son. The feeling of love in that room was overwhelming. And the best thing – you can go and see it too, because instead of being on for 3 days, this exhibition runs all summer until 15 September. Make sure you catch it.