The Egg

With its organic, sculptural form, the Egg is recognized as an iconic furniture design both in Denmark and around the world, with many considering it Arne Jacobsen’s principal design.

Together with the Swan, the Egg was a pivotal feature in Arne Jacobsen’s acclaimed interior design of the SAS Royal Hotel (now Radisson Collection Royal Hotel) from 1960. While the hotel exterior is characterized by minimalist, rectilinear precision, the elaborate total design that Arne Jacobsen created inside the hotel was a rich and diverse environment of forms, textures and sophisticated details. When the hotel opened in 1960, it was Copenhagen’s first skyscraper and a significant architectural addition to the area around Copenhagen’s Central Station. Over time, the Egg has attained at least the same iconic status as the famous hotel itself.

The development of the chairs for the SAS Royal Hotel was based on a new technological approach. Instead of a steel frame and wood, the chairs were shaped in a hard foam material that was subsequently padded and upholstered. Furniture manufacturer Fritz Hansen secured the rights for this method in the mid 1950s, and Arne Jacobsen was the first designer to realize its full potential. In his development of the Ant during the early 1950s, Arne Jacobsen had begun to use plaster and clay in an experimental design process. Like a sculptor, he used these malleable materials to work out the characteristic shape of the Egg, creating a design with a harmonious sculptural expression that immediately earned it a central place in design history.

Sandor Perjesi (born 1940), model maker in Arne Jacobsen’s studio, recalls the time he worked with Arne Jacobsen on the Egg: ‘I remember the first time we went to a summer cottage near Tissø to work on the Egg. We crammed the plaster model into my car and spent an entire weekend adding and filing off material. Back and forth, like classic sculpting.’