3daysofdesign Copenhagen 18-20 June 2025
What’s New in 2025 for Contemporary Danish Designer Furniture?
The 12th edition of this fair was bigger and better than ever and so we could absorb the creative buzz that was evident throughout the city. No rain this year either and so this made the trip that much more enjoyable. We saw some great new releases from our most popular Danish furniture and lighting brands. These included; Carl Hansen, Fritz Hansen, HAY, Montana, Audo Copenhagen, Louis Poulsen, Kvadrat, Andersen. There were also some new releases from other European Design houses such as String, Flos and Vitra. Sustainability was a big focus as usual and the new in-colour was a lovely deep red that was seen on most brands displays.
It was also great to return to such a beautiful city that has good design and taste engrained in every element of it. You can feel it in their history and from the architecture to the shops to the houses, food and people. This year we decided to include a few typical Danish activities and started our visit with a trip on the first evening to the Tivoli Gardens for drinks and food and ended with another cultural visit to the inspiring Louisiana museum, which is about an hour north of Copenhagen. Thank you to our friends at Fritz Hansen for recommending this hidden gem.
These visits put all of the new designs into context of where Danish design originated from and how it can really improve your life - no wonder the Danes are so famous for their quality of life - Hygge really is as good as it claims to be.
Tivoli Gardens
Tivoli Gardens is the world's second oldest amusement park and a visit from Walt Disney gave him the inspiration to create his empire. As well as the rides, the park is popular with Danes as a place to chill out on an evening. We loved taking a bit of time out of city life to chill in style.
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
Louisiana is a beautiful museum with stunning landscaped gardens that look out to sea. There were exhibitions by Robert Longo with his incredible pencil drawings that look so realistic and Kaari Upson's Dollhouse. The gardens were full of stunning contemporary sculptures including numerous pieces by Henry Moore.
We were also very fortunate to attend the enlightening HAY's Design Talk – Where Design Converges. It was very special to experience Rolf Hay and Marco Sammicheli discussing the differences between Italian and Danish design and how the world wars impacted the design process in each country. Danish design evolving slowly and safely in comparison to the Italians who often used fun and shock to move their design process forward. Both countries were limited by raw material availability and economic struggles. The insight into Rolf's early design passion from the greats of Hans Wegner and Borge Mogensen, through to Ray & Charles Eames and how Cappellini as a manufacturer and innovator in design heavily influenced how he approaches the design process at HAY.
HAY
HAY had lots of exciting new furniture and lighting. The main launch was the reintroduction of the Amanta sofa by Mario Bellini. We also discovered some lovely new dining chairs and lights by French designer Julien Renault, lights by Ana Kras and a new table system by British furniture designer John Tree.
We arrived early for the most informative discussion with Marco Sammicheli and Rolf Hay about European design and how it evolved during the post war years.
Then we had a private view of the new launches on the top floors of the HAY house. This is a great opportunity to not only view and try the new releases, but also chat to the designers who are able to give you great insights into the design process that they adopted. Julien Renault and John Tree were very generous with their time and we look forward to having their new releases on display in the gallery.
It was then a quick tour of the lower floors of the HAY house to see new and existing ranges. A great effort is made in their room styling and it is very inspiring to see how they mix and match pieces together.
On the thursday evening there was HAY party at the Apollo bar in the stunning Nyhaven part of the city.
Carl Hansen
Carl Hansen's stunning new Bredgrad showroom was full of new pieces of furniture, as well as updates to existing design classics.
The recent acquisition of luxury furniture manufacturer, Getama has added some stunning pieces by Hans Wegner and Nanna & Jorgen Ditzel to the Carl Hansen collection and we previewed some of the upcoming pieces. These included the gorgeous ND52 sofa and the very useful ND55 Extendable Coffee Table. Hans Wegner pieces included the gorgeous looking and incredible comfortable CH290 Series lounge chairs and sofas, the stunning CH621 swivel office chair.
There were also some lovely new leathers for the ever popular Colonial Chair and Daybed and a lovely new small (120cm) round, solid oak dining table that will be very popular. Borge Mogensen's new BM0121 120cm round dining table was lovely and filled a gap for a small extendable dining table in the Carl Hansen collection
Their range of contemporary lighting (mainly from Opala) were also displayed and upstairs was a lovely outdoor terrace showing off their ever increasing outdoor range of sofas, tables and lounge chairs.
Nicely placed amongst all of the design classics was the lovely new AB019 wall hung desk by Anker Bak. The matching drawer was very cleverly designed to either sit on top or be hung underneath it by some cool metal straps.
The new Carl Hansen showroom in Copenhagen is stunning and definitely worth a visit.
Montana
Montana had a presence at its 2 stores in Copenhagen. One has a stronger commercial focus with many work desks and storage solutions on display. The other store focuses more on domestic settings. There a fresh perspectives on colour, shape and design, which much more muted and toned down colours. The sets as usual were stunning and it still amazes us how the use of colour can totally change the look of the Montana pieces.
Their main launch was the re-edition of the Paradigm modular sofa by Erik Rasmussen. As expected from Montana, this is being produced with removable covers and so will be very environmentally friendly.
Jorgen Rasmussen (who passed away last October) was sadly missed this year, but his chairs and designs were ever present.
Joakim Lassen was much more conservatively dressed this year, due to the fact that it was too warm to wear a wool suit in the funky fabric being used on the Paradigm sofa. Previously he has worn co-ordinated suits to match new fabrics being launched and this has become a highlight of the show for us. Hopefully next year the tradition will be repeated.
Montana provided a lovely lunch, which was enjoyed in their outdoor courtyard amongst the stunning Pantonova Wire Chairs.
Fritz Hansen
Fritz Hansen were based at their beautiful store as well as the Orangeriet restaurant, which is right next to the Royal Gardens.
Both venues were full of their gorgeous furniture, lighting and accessories and displayed existing classics alongside some exciting new pieces. The main new launch was the new dining set by Michael Anastassiades. A contemporary evolution of a classic design by the design legend, in his first project for Fritz Hansen.
A special version of the 3107 dining chair - the Series 7 Tailored was launched with a beautiful artisan-stitched harness leather. Available in 3 colours and just a limited number will be produced and so once sold out it will not be available anymore.
The newly refurbished showroom now has many of the original archives on display. Fritz Hansen, unlike many other manufacturers of mid-century furniture, actually own the rights to all of their furniture, rather than just a right to manufacture them under licence. The new display is a great way to get this message across.
Fritz Hansen's ReNEW initiative to refurbish, repair and renew old furniture was highlighted and we hope that this will be available in the UK in the near future.
We also had chance to catch up with the design legend Kasper Saalto, who has some exiting new projects coming soon.
The Skagerak range of outdoor furniture was on display in their outdoor area and also at the stunning Orangeriet restaurant.
Louis Poulsen
Louis Poulsen had also refurbished their stunning showroom, located at the old Cannon factory in the Kuglegårdsvej district of the city.
The setting is beautiful and now the showroom shows collections arranged by each prominent designer rather than by floor lamps, table lamps etc. We saw a pre-view of some pendant and desk lights by designer Juhl Finn, a first for Louis Poulsen and we are sure will be very popular when they are launched.
We also saw some new colour versions of the stunning Artichoke pendant as well as some other new versions of the some Poul Henningsen classics.
New portable versions of the Panton table lamps were also on display.
Outside was a stunning work of art - Circle Dome Square — a surreal textile installation by artist Henrik Vibskov and inspired by Verner Panton. A combination of shapes and colours into a larger structure and using the textiles to create a design reminiscent of old-school cameras. Henrik's father was also a photographer and the creation really appealed to us, due to our photographic pedigree.
Audo Copenhagen
Audo Copenhagen have completely revamped their stunning hotel and head quarters in the Nordhavn region of the city.
Audo House is a unique concept that masterfully unites a café, a concept shop, as well as an exclusive residence, in a single, community-building universe. Norm Architects have done a beautiful job with the transformation.
It is well worth a visit and, if you are lucky enough to get a room, a stay if you are ever in the area. The space is full of existing and new pieces from the Audo collection, as well as some bespoke pieces that have been designed just for the space.
New releases included the Nonna table lamp, the Tired Man Chair in a special fabric and at a special price as part of Audo's Everyday Icon programme. We cannot wait for our display chair to arrive in the gallery.
There was the stunning Chancery pendant by Norm Architects. Originally designed for a bank, it will become part of the main collection.
New loose covers for the Tea Room chairs will be great for hotels and private clients alike to easily refresh their chairs.
String
String Furniture exhibited at Framing and had their new dark grey colour on display on both the String Systems and Relief storage solutions. The dark grey works really well with the walnut and oak veneers and it as great to see a few cominations to give us fresh ideas on how to use the system. String is such a versatile system it always good to have new ideas on how to pull it together.
Vitra & Kvadrat
Sadly, due to a marketing embargo, we could not see any of the new Eames editions that are due later in the year. We did, however, try out the lovely new Slow Sofa, a new release to go alongside an updated Slow Chair by the Bouroullec brothers.
We also saw some lovely configurations of the Anagram Sofa that was launched last year.
There were also several pieces upholstered in Kvadrat fabrics as part of a new joint initiative between the brands. We love Kvadrat and so it is good to see their fabrics now extended to Vitra pieces.
Every great danish design has as great story behind it
Spinning Floor Lamps at Tivoli
We spotted these stunning floor lamps whilst walking through the Tivoli Gardens ... they definitely had the markings of a Louis Poulsen PH lamp.
When we met with Louis Poulsen the following day they explained the story behind these stunning lights. Poul Henningsen had always had a playful part to his character and so when he designed these specifically for the park and he added a special feature. When the Danes walked out of the park on an evening, and had enjoyed one too many drinks, they would feel even more drunk than they actually were due top the spinning action off the lights! The spinning motion could also be attributed to the motion of the rides, but we liked this story much more!
It is also a tribute to the quality of the Louis Poulsen lights - which can be found in different forms all over the park - in that after all these years they are still there looking cool and working well.