Kaare Klint

Author 

Gorm Harkær, is not one of the leading Klint experts – he is the leading Klint expert. We have exhibited furniture together since 1985 and have made numerous of joint projects. Gorm is a cabinetmaker and an architect and for several years he has researched intensively on Kaare Klint and his works. What goes for Kaare Klint – well, read it yourself, but it is certainly not too much to say that he is our “Grand Old Man”, founder of a school of which you must decide your opinion.

The Architect

The architect Kaare Klint became one of the 20th century’s single most significant people in Danish architecture. 

Through his works he showed solutions, with which his contemporary colleagues often let him alone, but in time they learned to adopt them. 

He built up a loyal clientele by skills and sheer hard work, who in trust and patience waited for the product and accepted the price, but who did not complain about the quality. He had many jobs from prominent circles of the society.

His drawing office was modest his whole life through – just as were the number of his employees. Many hours were often put into jobs, which were considered minor matters by outstanding people not possessing the ability to estimate the quality of the solution. Possibilities offered him a wide spectre of jobs, which was common at that time. Some jobs had to be done out of necessity, other jobs was an honour to be trusted with. He did everything from stamps, king sarcophagi for the state of Denmark and advertisement business articles to warehouses, buildings, furniture and lamps.

In 1924 the structure of The Architect School was renewed. Several new departments were established – among others the department of "Interior and Furniture Art" to which Klint was hired as teacher. Klint established a form of education – a working method, which later on in time was to be known as "The Klint School".  Klint describes the essential points of the programme as “measuring as a preliminary study for later reprocessing, human measurements and movements, objects measurements, constructive relations in connection with directs, assembling methods, fabric treatment, aesthetic considerations and teamwork”. In close collaboration with the students Klint carried out a series of studies, which became normative for the trade.

Schooling

Kaare Klint was the son of the artistically gifted architect P.V. Jensen-Klint.  A family living in straitened circumstances, but who developed the self confidence that makes people strong by purposeful hard work. They moved freely and with respect in circles among kindred spirits. During his childhood he played with playmates who became some of the leading artists many years later. Kaare Klint’s schooling was hard and demanding. Primarily his father was his master and later on it was the architect Carl Petersen.

The art of the trade is the art of repetition

"The art of repetition has the same value as the art of innovation – a skill which the craftsman has and which cannot be carried out satisfactorily by others as the innovation belongs to the artist and can only take form in hes hands. Repetition creates perfection in the everyday life, and the innovation perfection through times”, writes the architect Mr. P.V. Jensen-Klint in 1909.

It was through the craft that Kaare Klint acquired his thorough knowledge. The level of the trade is naturally related to the surrounding society of a certain time. Klint’s activities were coincident with a course of development, which meant the way to the top to the Danish cabinetmakers. At one time he was both part of and contributory to it.

In the middle of the century the peak of Danish furniture art was reached and was considered leading worldwide. The result of a deliberate co-operation between the craftsmen, artists, and clients, who appreciated it and paid for it.

The concept of quality

Time helps us sort out. Most things disappear. Focus is on the things, which live on as examples of past times. The sorting is controlled by coincidence, but often with a social bias, making the expensive things our witnesses of a pasted culture. Every generation shops among the supplied goods and lives with them until the generation dies away. During the past few years several furniture shops have opened trading second hand furniture from the first half of the 20th century. The furniture may therefore send a message to the generations that follows. It does not matter whether it is a heirloom, an investment, a fine piece of craftsman work, or an antique – the furniture is re-used under the concept of  “a classic” and attests to qualities beyond the one of the present. Some of the furniture has to be “repaired” before resale, which must “pay off “ and at the same time be technically possible. 

A special aspect of the concept of quality is the continued production. Not many products can be supplied with intervals of decades. The stability demanded of the manufacturer and the society is so rarely found that an explanation is sought. Is it due to the quality of the product, which goes beyond the generation? Or is the furniture simply bought because it is available on the marked? Is it due to the lifestyle symbols in the combination of a respectable business and product? Maybe it is the artist as a person, which holds the explanation? Kaare Klint’s lamps for the company Le Klint and his furniture produced by the company “Rud. Rasmussens Snedkerier”, have become classical examples of an unexplainable correlation. Since the middle of the 20s “Rud. Rasmussens Snedkerier” has almost been the exclusive producer and retailer of  Klint’s furniture. The price for the acquisitions is the kind of price, when it hits your pocket, it most be good. The market is dominated completely by products that lack coherence between retail price and production price with its costs. An alienation of the craftsmanship, salaries and materials is increasing. Few people gladly pay others the hourly wage that you want for yourself, however, the global unification might help in the long term when all child labour is stamped out and everybody are paying green taxes in order to get rid of the shit.

The re-established craft

In 1932 the master cabinetmaker Mr. A.E. Mørck wrote: "The character of  Klint’s furniture, built on traditions from old English furniture and presently almost academically adopted as official representation style, owns so much dogmatic stifness despite its great advantages, that it protects the old constructive foundation of the cabinetmaker trade, which furthermore in Rud. Rasmussen’s exemplary workmanship can pleasure any cabinetmaker’s eye with some of what is often lacking in the modern over veneered box style, where many uncontrollable nonsense can hide behind the veneer”.

Klint sought to clarify and shape function, construction, and material in his work, this turned out to be a decoration in it self. Each part is a part of the whole i.e. construction, proportion, and material in a balance  - creating harmony. The support and the supported -  the static and the dynamic. The choice material is conditioned by its properties weighted against other parameters. The size and type of a cabinet is conditioned by its contents. An analysis of handling and use, appropriate storage, stacking and folding is important. When the cabinet plinth is made of ebony, it is the black colour that hides floor cloth cleaning and toe recess. The plinth bears the cabinet of mahogany and divides the furniture into the supporting and the supported part, increased by the colour contrast between the two wood species. The cabinet doors are made of panels and frames, the handles made of ebony – the black colour as a buffer for greasy fingers, which does not show when rubbed off on the dark wood. The outer surface of the cabinet is polished with wax, which is a lean treatment whose purpose is closer to setting off the true colour of the wood and give the surface depth, than it is to protect it against grease marks.

Renewal

Klint worked in a society of craftsmanship that fulfilled each client’s wishes, making products with life spans longer than the clients. When the trade of cabinetmaking by hand lives long enough, a chair which however in small series has been produced for a long time, can come to many in numbers. 2,500 copies of “Kirkestolen” (church chair) were delivered to the Church of Grundtvig from the company Fritz Hansens Eft. Rud. Rasmussen has sold more than 100,000 pieces of the Safari Chair since 1933, a time where concepts as " furniture kits and knock down" had a whole different meaning.

  The definition of industrial production and cabinetmaking by hand is not laid down neither qualitatively nor quantitatively, but some of Klint’s furniture are close by quantity to the form of production, which has brought Danish Design out in the world. In Denmark the tradition of quality wooden furniture has been built up during the past 50 years and is indeed a result of Klint’s and other architect’s and cabinetmaker’s work. The distribution of the product to the consumer market or more specific markets controls indeed the type of furniture and the price group. The supply of exclusive quality products has not been reduced – the world’s large manufacturers advertise their branches in New York, London, Paris, Milan, and Tokyo and they are paid well for us showing off their logo.

This phenomenon is also a result of a qualified designer’s work and of the good craftsmans work, but movie stars and shows, lifestyle magazines and the press are also necessary ingredients. Quality has always cost money and the money is present, but the clients miss the explanation of why they must buy furniture with it.

Gorm Harkær.