Dot

Furniture

1954

Dot

The small, functional Dot chair from 1954 was a perfect match for the modern environment at Rødovre Town Hall.

YEAR:

1954

DESIGN:

Arne Jacobsen

Waiting area in Rødovre Town Hall with the Munkegaard Lamp and Dot stools with round backrests mounted on the wall, 1956. Photo: Aage Strüwing © Jørgen Strüwing.

Arne Jacobsen co-developed the Dot stool with the Danish furniture manufacturer Fritz Hansen in the early 1950s. Like the Ant chair from 1952, Dot is a result of Arne Jacobsen’s ambition of creating elegant and functional designs based on new, industrial production methods.

The stool was used in the new Rødovre Town Hall, which was designed by Arne Jacobsen and inaugurated in 1956. The new town hall gave the rapidly growing suburb a modern administration building that radiated efficiency, modernity and rationality. The architecture is an example of Arne Jacobsen’s international style, its expression driven by taut geometry and light curtain walls in glass and steel. The small, functional Dot was a perfect match for this modern environment.

Dot
Manufactured by

Fritz Hansen

Rødovre Town Hall. Photo: Aage Strüwing © Jørgen Strüwing.

The architecture is an example of Arne Jacobsen’s international style, its expression driven by taut geometry and light curtain walls in glass and steel. The small, functional Dot was a perfect match for this modern environment.

Dot was developed during the early 1950s, a period when Arne Jacobsen was spending a lot of time at Fritz Hansen’s factories working on the development of his first shell chair, the Ant. Dot, which was launched in 1954, two years after the Ant, shares many of the Ant’s innovative features and reflects the same strong drive to rationalize production and minimize both the form and the use of materials. This gives the stool a delicate, elegant expression and reflects how Arne Jacobsen allowed the optimized industrial processes to guide his design. Like the Ant, Dot was born with three legs, but a fourth was added in the 1970s. In the late 1960s, Arne Jacobsen also developed a tall barstool, which is now in production by Fritz Hansen under the name High Dot. For Rødovre Library, which Arne Jacobsen designed in 1969 and which was erected just across from Town Hall, Arne Jacobsen also developed a children’s model, which is still in use in the library’s children’s section today.

The four-legged Dot stool. Photo: Fritz Hansen.

At Rødovre Town Hall, the Dot stool was used as a waiting seat in the lobby. Round backrests mirroring the shape of the seat were mounted on the wall behind the stools, while the stools themselves could be moved around freely. The installation reflects Arne Jacobsen’s focus on optimizing functionality and flexibility at Rødovre Town Hall. This focus permeated every aspect of the building, which was described in the press as ‘the town hall that can be assembled with a screwdriver’. The headline referred to the movable walls that were used in many of the rooms, a novel innovation when the town hall opened in 1956.

Both the building architecture and the interior design of Rødovre Town Hall had a rational, modern expression. While the exterior has been reduced to two minimalist box-shaped sections clad with glass and natural Solvåg stone from Norway, the interior reveals the rich detailing that is so characteristic of Arne Jacobsen’s work. The colour scheme, materials and furnishings were carefully selected by Arne Jacobsen himself and the high-precision, sleek aesthetic that characterizes the town hall is echoed by the Dot stool.

Sources: Arne Jacobsen Design Archives. / Arne Jacobsen’s scrapbooks. The Royal Library – Danish Art Library. / Stenum Poulsen, K., Skaarup Larsen, A., & Staunsager, S. (2020). Arne Jacobsen – Designing Denmark. Kolding: Trapholt. / Thau, C., & Vindum, K. (1998). Arne Jacobsen. Copenhagen: Danish Architectural Press.