The Land of the Chair - My Birthday Surprise!

I may have mentioned that it was my birthday a couple of weeks ago, and that I was being whisked away for a few days, but had no idea where. My husband is such an old romantic, and had planned this trip months before, only telling me that I would need my swimsuit and a winter coat… I knew we were flying somewhere for a couple of days, so it had to be Europe, but when we got in the car and drove south down the M1, we obviously weren’t going from Newcastle, then we passed Leeds Bradford airport, then East Midlands airport… it soon became clear we were heading for London, Luton to be exact!

We stayed in a nearby hotel that night, which obviously meant an early start the next morning - looking at the departures board gave me too many options, Gdansk? Brno…?? I literally didn’t know until we headed towards Gate 2 – Copenhagen! Yay!!! So happy!

After an easy flight, and short train ride into the centre of town, we dropped our bags off at the Tivoli Hotel (4 star no less!!) and headed off for a mooch. We both love ambling around European cities taking in the architecture and design, always remembering to look up as well as around! Justin had a few visits planned, the first of which was to the fantastic Design Museum. Before we looked around though we needed sustenance and a chance to catch my breath, this meant a gorgeous hot chocolate with lots of cream, followed by some traditional Danish open sandwiches, the salmon and beef were amazing, not too sure about the herring though!

The Denmark Design Museum is amazing and well worth a visit if you love modern design and crafts as much as we do. Collections include the works of famous Danish designers such as Arne Jacobsen, Jacob Jensen and Kaare Klint. One of the current exhibitions, Danish Design Now was particularly inspiring and featured a selection of modern pieces from all areas of design – furniture, graphics, fashion and product design. 

As you can see, a predominant feature of Danish design is the chair – I’ve never seen so many, or so many beautiful pieces! We have always loved the curves and style of these Arne Jacobsen chairs, and it was wonderful to see them in person. 

From what I can gather from the museum’s website, there is normally an exhibition dedicated to the Danish Chair, but sadly we either missed it, or it’s not on at the moment.

There were also some very interesting textile designs that caught my eye, most of these were print designs, these cushions I thought were quite pretty. And this wall hanging was actually velour! How striking are those colours!

A new permanent exhibition is Fashion and Fabric, a chance to discover 400 years of the history of fashion and textiles in Denmark. One of the main themes is Handicraft and Industry, and it was great to see this beautiful English hexagon quilt dating from around 1800. There was also an accompanying film showing the process of EPP which ended with an interesting 3D technique, once I've had a go myself, I'll share it with you.

The museum is also home to the largest library in Scandanavia dedicated to the decorative arts and industrial design, and the shop includes an impressive number of books on crafts and design as well as a wide selection of industrial design, ceramics, textiles and of course postcards.

After this design feast for the eyes and soul, we returned to our hotel room where the lovely girl on reception had left us a bottle of fizz to celebrate my birthday! The Danes aren’t called to happiest people in the world for nothing!

The next day was all about architecture and food… more about that next week!

This week I'm linking up with Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts, Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication and Needle & Thread Thursday over at My Quilt Infatuation.