Copenhagen in June is the city at its most alluring: Danes taking early-morning dips at Kalvebod Bølge; the sweet chestnuts in leaf along the cobbled avenues; and nearly 18 hours of daylight in which to linger in the Rosenborg Garden or browse for vintage finds at the loppemarkeder. Now in its 13th year, 3 Days of Design takes place against this midsummer backdrop, filling the city’s Renaissance and Rococo landmarks with the best in Scandinavian design, with more than 400 exhibitors popping up between Nordhavn and Islands Brygge from June 10 to 12.
Like Copenhagen Fashion Week, hospitality is as central to 3 Days as the design itself, with much chatter this year about the first glimpse of Frederik Bille Brahe’s latest restaurant Daphne, while the fact that Tina Seidenfaden Busck is now letting her 18th-century gallery The Apartment for overnight stays was met with as much enthusiasm as her curation of Artists I Collect and Admire.
Flatware met its future
Expanding on curator Dung Ngo’s research for Knife Fork Spoon: Everyday Tools, Extraordinary Design at the Denver Art Museum, LA gallery Marta asked 12 international designers to reimagine cutlery staples for a 3 Days installation in the Art-Nouveau surrounds of Den Frie Udstilling. If Ngo’s Colorado exhibition brought together 150 flatware sets from 1900 to today, Knife, Fork, Spoon 3.0 looked to their future in a digital age. Its central thesis: if cutlery 1.0 was handmade, and cutlery 2.0 was manufactured, then cutlery 3.0 will be 3-D printed—with all 12 sets of flatware shown at 3 Days impossible to produce using conventional methods, from Marcin Rusak’s orchid-like designs to SO-IL’s sintered-steel grids.
Tekla saluted the quilting bee
In partnership with architectural studio Mentze Ottenstein, Tekla returned to Charlottenborg Palace to stage The Heart of Living, a tribute to the patchwork quilts and cabin beds that were staples of rural homes across Scandinavia in the 19th century. Inspired by Åsa Wettre’s book Old Swedish Quilts, Tekla’s bedspreads follow the log-cabin pattern brought to America by immigrants in the 1800s, with the pine woodwork of the beds echoing the blocks’ geometric arrangement. These particular quilts—done in cool-blue, soft-cream, and deep-red colorways from the brand’s archives—will only be available to purchase on request, but happily, Colette, the latest addition to Tekla’s broderie-anglais range, debuted in stores and online to coincide with the fair, too.
Romantic glassware reigned
Established in 2022 by CEO Josefine Arthur and designer Annika Zobel Agerled, Akua Objects’ glassware is exclusively crafted by master artisans across Murano and Bohemia, with the founders’ inspirations ranging from midcentury lacework to Agerled’s grandmother’s orchard. Based in Copenhagen, the brand already counts fellow Danish labels Ganni and Cecilie Bahnsen as fans, with Arthur and Agerled introducing a tableware line co-designed with Frederik Bille Brahe at 3 Days. Displayed on an 18th-century pietra dura table from Giudecca’s Le Zitelle, each hand-blown piece was designed to give the illusion that its contents were floating. Also highly covetable: the brand’s just-launched Clara collection, created using filigree techniques that date back to 16th-century Venice. Arthur and Agerled weren’t the only Danes taking inspiration from La Serenissima, either. Frederik’s sister, jewelry designer Sophie Bille Brahe, debuted her Cellophane Nuage line, including six pearlescent vases hand-blown on Murano, during the fair.
Aarticles opened its archives
Fred Aartun and Kasia Sznajder’s Aarticles is a trove of contemporary design and found objects, with the platform’s cofounders (and long-term couple) taking over a fourth-floor apartment on Christian IX’s Gade for a showcase titled Compositions. The exhibition brought together designs by an eclectic, and extraordinary, selection of makers working across stoneware and silver plate, Bizen ware and wood, with the duo citing the JB Blunk Estate in Inverness and Isamu Noguchi’s Long Island City studio as inspirations for their curation in the past. Notably, Compositions marked the European debut of California-based sculptor Vince Skelly, whose angular works are carved from single blocks of West Coast timber, with the Claremont-based artist reinterpreting traditional chess pieces for 3 Days.
The art of hosting got its due
Louise Roe’s concept store, gallery, and café has been a meeting place for the coolest of Københavners since its 2018 opening, serving kaffe and BMOs amidst Louise’s own Brutalist and Bauhaus designs. This year’s fair saw the multihyphenate give over the entire space to her Stay a Little Longer exhibition, with guests invited to pause, linger, and have a glass of wine among her latest creations, including The Frankie Café Table and Chair (sweetly named for her brand director—and son—Emil’s Staffie mix). Meanwhile, Noura Residency, an apartment and studio in Indre By, tapped London-based chef Imogen Kwok for Fat Powder Fruit Sugar, an installation featuring crystalline sugar leaves and fern-topped butter sculptures set out among Marlot Baus and Køge furniture.
The best exhibits were a study in contrasts
When it opened in 1848, Thorvaldsens Museum became the first museum in the world dedicated to a single artist, with its Pompeii-inspired frescoes and terrazzo flooring meant to play up the Neoclassical elements of Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen’s monumental works. For this year’s 3 Days of Design, creative Birgitte Due Madsen turned curator for Objects of Desire, installing restrained pieces by 20 designers in and among the marble pomp of Thorvaldsen’s mounted steeds. Among the highlights: Paris-based studio Sausset Leou’s Herbarium Lamp; Korean maker Rahee Yoon’s Ottchil-lacquer creations; and Madsen’s own Spirada Table. Meanwhile, Copenhagen’s historic auction house Bruun Rasmussen filled the understated rooms of Galerie Mikael Andersen with A Collector’s Home, a pre-sale exhibition of Scandinavian objects and furniture by lesser-known 20th-century makers alongside Axel Salto stoneware and Josef Frank creations.
