Mogens Koch

Danemark (1898 – 1992 )

Mogens Koch, who is especially known for his furniture classics such as the bookcase system and the Folding programme, worked with Kaare Klint in 1925-30, and was professor at Kunstakademiets Arkitektskole in Copenhagen in 1950-68. Mogens Koch's furniture design forms part of some of the most elegant and important solutions in terms of meeting the requirements to comfort, function and aesthetics and his furniture has been key to Rud. Rasmussen's production since 1932.

Mogens Koch worked within all aspects of architecture - housing plans, houses, monuments, furniture, textiles, silver and writing. Mogens Koch's works include only few objects but they are all essential, original and sometimes courageous or daring. There has always been special interaction between Mogens Koch's own life and the furniture he designed. None of them came into existence as artistic manifestos but arose from a given assignment and were created for a particular purpose. Thus, his bookcase was at first designed for his private home in Hulgårdsvej near Bellahøj in Copenhagen.

The small rooms in people's houses required a flexible bookcase or cabinet and in 1928 he drew the first sketches for the square bookcase which in the relatively small module of 76 cm x 76 cm provided great and varied functional usage.

Koch was awarded numerous honorable prizes - amongst others the Eckersberg Medal (1938), the C. F. Hansen Medal (1963) and the ID Prize (1992)