“Ox“ chair

Jacobsen designed this chair over a five-year period. Large, impressive, and extremely comfortable, when it was presented in 1966 it was met with surprise and admiration. "This is also how he can be: angular and with a touch of martial temperament that we could call Germanic or perhaps more properly Japanese in expression" (Thau and Vindum, eds., Jacobsen, Copenhagen, 2001, p. 525).
Arne Jacobsen has become the greatest ambassador for modern Danish design. Certain of his creations, perhaps most notably his "3107" chair, are ubiquitous symbols of the ideas associated with modern Scandinavian design. That is to say, they embody the search for simple, practical, yet elegant forms, favoring the soft-contoured over the rectilinear; they reflect the thoughtful use of materials, allying wood and fibers to the necessary metal structural elements, and the sense that objects are there to serve rather than adorn. Jacobsen trained and practiced as an architect, and his evolution as a designer of furniture and objects was the consequence of his desire to achieve a complete harmony within his architectural projects. The range of his ideas is well-defined by two major projects in Copenhagen, those for the SAS Building (1955-1960), a hotel and air terminal, and for the National Bank of Denmark (1961-1971). The buildings reveal an evolution from the International Style minimalism of the SAS Building to a more expressive use of form in the National Bank. Here is the range of Jacobsen the designer, by instinct restrained, yet understanding the need to give character to his creations and ready to be a little playful, as with the anthropomorphic hints in his chair names.

Black leather, steel
391/4 in. (101 cm) high

Literature:
Carsten Thau and Kjeld Vindum, eds., ARNE JACOBSEN, COPENHAGEN, 2001, p. 525