Hans J. Wegner

Hans J. Wegner was a world renowned Danish furniture designer. In his lifetime, he designed over 500 different chairs, over 100 of which were put into mass-production and many of which have become recognizable design icons. Born in Denmark in 1914 to a cobbler, the young Wegner was interested in wood-sculpturing from an early age. He completed apprenticeships as a teenager before going to the Danish School of Arts and Crafts and the Architectural Academy in Copenhagen. When architects Arne Jacobsen and Erik Møller established a studio together to design and build Åarhus City Hall in 1940, they took Wegner on as a trainee.   
Even his earliest objects Wegner exhibited a typical approach of "stripping the old chairs of their outer style and letting them appear in their pure construction." It is said that he " always wanted to make unexceptional things of an exceptionally high quality." The most famous of his creations were the Peacock, Kennedy and Wishbone Chairs.