British architectural designer John Pawson first worked with Dinesen, Denmark’s leading manufacturer of handcrafted wooden flooring and products, over 30 years ago. The new Pawson Furniture Collection is a made-to-order celebration of the relationship that’s formed and the collaborations created since 1992. Projects during the interim have included everything from private homes to exhibitions and museums, even chapels.
One might say that the collection got its start back then, when Pawson was designing his own home in Notting Hill, London. Using Dinesen’s Douglas fir for the flooring, the planks were laid uncut in one single piece. Wood of a corresponding width was then used to create a table and stools. The successful commission budded into a friendship and business partnership that’s now lasted more than three decades.
The forms of the Pawson Furniture Collection for Dinesen are based on the span of one of the brand’s floorboards and transformed into the Dining Series and complementary Lounge Series. Meanwhile, the collection distills the Danish word umage, meaning to go beyond what is expected or thought possible, as they expand and progress through the designs.
When I look at this new furniture collection for Dinesen, I see the essence of the thinking that has shaped my work since the beginning. Everything about these pieces is pared back to the logic and poetry of the wood. The dimensions of the timber determine the proportions of the forms, and then it’s all about the inherent sensory character of the material.
-John Pawson
Included in the Dining Series, which was first drawn by Pawson in 1992, is a dining table, bench, and stool. It’s been updated with a shadow gap detail, but otherwise remains the same. Two boards make up the top and legs of the dining table, with the new shadow gap present, combining Douglas fir planks with an insert of Dinesen Oak. The bench and stool are made using a single Douglas fir board.
The Lounge Series includes a solid Douglas wood lounge chair, coffee table, sofa, and daybed. Skilled cabinet makers in Denmark, who are local to Dinesen, build the wooden frames before upholstering them with Kvadrat textiles. The sides of the sofa and lounge chair expose the wood boards, with the cushions adding layered elements to each piece’s design. The daybed and coffee table are both shorter versions of the dining table.
“He [Pawson] was the first to request our wood for a private home, and he wanted planks of the same width (450 mm). John Pawson has in many ways changed our relationship with the ‘plank’ from a restoration material for historic buildings to a design element in modern architecture,” Thomas Dinesen, fourth generation at Dinesen, says.
To learn more about the Pawson Furniture Collection, visit dinesen.com.
Photography by Claus Troelsgaard.