Society
Table

The furniture series from 1952 was commissioned by the Danish shipyard and diesel engine producer Burmeister & Wain as a gift for the American-Scandinavian Foundation in New York. In addition to the Society Table, the commission also included a coffee table and a lounge chair, all of it made in tubular steel, plywood and leather. The desk is the highlight of the series, with its leather-covered top that organically bends over the stainless-steel frame. In addition to the steel and leather components, the desk features a drawer section in wood, mounted underneath the desktop, and a set of shelves mounted on top, also in wood. This sensuous combination of materials is typical of Arne Jacobsen, who was a master of combining the ‘cold’, modern materials of industry with a Scandinavian grasp of the welcoming and warm character of natural materials.

The year 1952 also saw the launch of the Ant, Arne Jacobsen’s small lightweight chair with its pioneering expression and production process. The Ant and the furniture series for the American-Scandinavian Foundation were developed concurrently, and both projects reflect Arne Jacobsen’s experimentation with new materials and technological methods during the early 1950s with the goal of achieving greater design latitude and simpler, lighter constructions. In spring 1953, Arne Jacobsen exhibited the Society Table alongside the Ant at the Danish Museum of Art & Design (now Designmuseum Danmark), and in the press, the two designs were compared and characterized as, respectively, ‘Expensive and affordable luxury’. Both were praised for their beauty and elegance.

The Ant chair was developed for industrial mass production, and by now, millions of Ant chairs have been produced. By contrast, the Society Table was originally hand-made by a cabinetmaker in a very limited series. Until then, Arne Jacobsen’s designs had followed the classic Danish furniture tradition of hand-made cabinetmaker’s furniture, but the Society Table positions itself at the transition from exclusive and highly detailed cabinetmaking to a minimalist production-oriented aesthetic. Despite the desk’s key role in the story of Arne Jacobsen, and of 1950s Danish design in general, it remained quite unknown until 2018, when it was relaunched by the Danish furniture manufacturer Carl Hansen & Søn.

Arne Jacobsen further commissioned a Society Table for himself, which he used in the office in his home on Strandvejen. It was also featured in one of Arne Jacobsen’s four terraced houses in the international architecture exhibition Interbau Berlin in 1957. In this major exhibition, Arne Jacobsen presented his vision of future urban dwellings alongside the most prominent names of the time, including German-American Walter Gropius 1883-1969, Swiss Le Corbusier (1887-1965) and Finnish Alvaar Aalto (1898-1976). During the exhibition period, one of the four detached houses was presented fully furnished and decorated, exemplifying Arne Jacobsen’s ideas about what a modern home should look like. Here, the Society Table was featured alongside many of the iconic designs he created during this period, including Series 7, the AJ Lamp and Series 3300.

Sources: Arne Jacobsen Design Archives. / Arne Jacobsen’s drawings. The collection of architectural drawings, The Royal Library – Danish Art Library. / Arne Jacobsen’s scrapbooks. The Royal Library – Danish Art Library. / Thau, C., & Vindum, K. (1998). Arne Jacobsen. Copenhagen: Danish Architectural Press.