Finn Juhl was a Danish furniture designer and architect. He was educated at the Academy of Fine Arts 1930-1934. He worked as a teacher at the School of Interior Design 1945-1955. Finn Juhl is probably is the most recognised of Danish furniture makers and also internationally for his organic, sculptural idiom and for the fruitful cooperation with cabinetmaker Niels Vodder, which resulted in pioneering methods and techniques for the manufacture of furniture in teak. Finn Juhl’s furniture is characterized by a strong feeling for the material qualities and properties. The Guild Exhibitions was an important venue for the young designers who sought to renew Danish, turning their backs on the traditional historicist styles, heavy and with ornaments and plush, instead creating modern furniture which fitted the new trends in architecture. The projects was highly controversial and Juhl's first work met much criticism. His Pelican chair, designed in 1939 and first produced in 1940, was descriped as a "tired walrus" and "aestetics in the worst possible sense of the word". In spite of the initial criticism, Juhl'shis work began to have an impact on the style of homes abroad throughout the 40s. Still his popularity in Denmark did not reach that of his peers, Børge Mogensen and Hans Wegner, who were less redical in their designs and relied more on Kaare Klint, leader of the furniture school at the Academy and the nestor of modern Danish furniture design..His work also invluded numerous assignments within the field of interior design. Shortly after opening his own office, he received several commissions to do interior design at some of the premier addresses in Copenhagen, Bing & Grøndahl's shop on Amagertorv (1946), now housing Royal Copenhagen, and Svend Schaumann´s flourist´s shop on Kongens Nytorv (1948. In 1951–52 he designed the Trusteeship Council Chamber in the United Nations headguarters in New York City. He also collaborated regularly with companys such as Georg Jensen and Scandinavian Airlines, jis work for the latter including both ticket offices and interiors of planes. He also had many assignments as an exhibition designer. Besides furniture exported Finn Juhl also applied art in glass and wood and also fitting tasks. Many of Finn Juhl’s furniture is represented in museums, several are still in production and sold mainly in USA and Japan. In 2003 indstiftede Wilhelm Hansen Foundation Finn Juhl Prize given to persons who have made a special effort within the furniture architecture. In the 60s and 70s he experienced a declining interest in his designs. In the 80's and 90s the interest resurged. In 2010 one of his sofas, produced by Danish furniture brand OneCollection. n 1942 Juhl designed a house for himself, today known simply as Finn Juhl's House, and had it built for money inhered from his father. Over the years it was increasingly furnished with creations of his own design. He married Inge-Marie Skaarups on 15 July 1937 but they later divorced. From 1961 he lived in a common-law marriage with Hanne wilhelm Hansen,[6] a member of the family behind the Edition Wilhelm Hansen music publishing house. She survived him but after her death in May 2003 their home, which she had left unchanged after his death, was made into a [[historic house museum, today operated as part of the Ordrupgaard Art Museum whose premises it adjoins.
