PK52A Student Desk

The PK52A Student Desk was designed in 1955 by Poul Kjærholm for Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. The Academy needed a number of desks for its lectur­ers and students, and Kjærholm, who had just joined the faculty as a lecturer, designed a PK52 Profes­sor Desk along with the PK52A Student Desk. During the design process, Kjærholm drew on his expe­ri­ence as both a cabi­net­maker and a furni­ture designer, redis­cov­er­ing the synthe­sis between crafts­man­ship and indus­trial design along the way. The desks, which are distin­guished by a clean, light expres­sion, helped estab­lish Kjærholm as a one-of-a-kind furni­ture designer with an intu­itive feel for the inher­ent poten­tial of his chosen materials.

The profes­sor and Student Desks’ light and simple design comple­ments both modern and classic décors and show­cases the exquis­ite inter­play between mate­ri­als that became Poul Kjærholm’s signa­ture. Kjærholm elegantly combined a coated steel frame with a veneer coun­ter­top and refined some of the design concepts that came to define his furni­ture – partic­u­larly the trade­mark float­ing table­top. The series also reflects the designer’s well-known atten­tion to detail and demand for arti­sanal finishes. With their precise expres­sion and execu­tion, the desks embody the crafts­man­ship virtues that define Carl Hansen and Søn. Both designs can serve as desks, dining room tables, or beau­ti­ful work­ta­bles for draft­ing rooms or offices. The pieces are also equally at home in hotel rooms and other envi­ron­ments marked by simple, modern aesthetics.

Both the PK52 Profes­sor Desk and the PK52A Student Desk are avail­able with Oregon pine veneer or oak veneer table­tops with an oiled, lacquered, or black-painted surface, and a black or gray-lacquered steel frame, with or without a drawer unit. The drawer unit, PK115, is avail­able in oiled, varnished, or black- painted oak.