Viggo Boesen

Viggo Boesen’s work as an archi­tect contributed to Denmark’s signa­ture design aesthetic in the 1930s. In partic­u­lar, his work reflects what became known as funkis style, or func­tion­al­ism. In contrast to mass-produced mate­ri­als and the less-is-more approach from the Bauhaus school of thought, Boesen brought a soft, warm and almost naïve aspect to design, usher­ing in new forms of upholstered furniture.

Few of Boesen’s orig­i­nal designs were ever produced, yet the organic shapes and expres­sive design lingo that informed his work, as seen in the Little Petra lounge chair for &Tradition, were precur­sors to Denmark’s subse­quent stance on modernism in the decades that followed.