‘A mastery of the essence of place’ is how The Architectural Review summed up Danish architect Hanne Kjærholm’s essential talent, considering a museum building she had designed for the city of Odense in the mid-1990s. For lovers of Danish design, the name Kjærholm might immediately suggest Hanne’s husband, the renowned furniture designer Poul Kjærholm, but Hanne’s own talent lay in creating the elegant settings – perfectly in tune with the natural world – in which such refined pieces might be seen at their best.
Kjærholm was one of the most influential Danish architects of her generation, and pursued her career in a quietly radical way. Qualifying in the late 1950s, she ran her own practice almost from the start, which in itself was unusual for a woman at the time. In 1989, she became Denmark’s first female professor of architecture, teaching at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, where she had studied, and she worked hard to support and promote women in the field.
KJærholm’s best-known work is the house at Rungsted, just north of Copenhagen, that she designed for her family in the early 1960s, and which is still inhabited today by the couple’s son Thomas. Overlooking the Oresund Strait, which divides Denmark and Sweden, the single-storey brick-and-glass structure embodied the partnership between Kjærholm and her husband.
‘They shared a strong sense of simplicity, proportion and focus on materials,’ says Thomas. ‘My mother created calm spaces, and my father created furniture to fit seamlessly into them. The layout is both open and private, making it easy to be together while still having space to retreat. It feels timeless and still works beautifully for everyday life.’ Taking inspiration from Japanese domestic architecture, Kjærholm created the house to be thoroughly in harmony with its surroundings, filled with the ever-changing light of the sea vista beyond its walls.
Connection to the environment was a hallmark of Kjærholm’s work. At a country house she designed on the remote island of Læsø, she took the region’s established forms of timber walls and steeply pitched roofs, but reinterpreted them to craft spacious, open-plan rooms that melted into terraces outside.
Her ability to create expansive views and modulate natural light was a much-praised aspect of her work on public buildings, such as the art museum in Holstebro, where gloriously sunny relaxation spaces, filled with light even in the darker days of a Scandinavian winter, contrast with more gently lit galleries. Like all the best architects, Kjærholm had the gift of designing an atmosphere, not just a building.
