Magnus Olesen | Danish Furniture Since 1937

Background

Magnus Olesen was founded in 1937 on a straightforward belief in Danish craftsmanship, and has kept its production in Durup, on Denmark’s Jutland peninsula, ever since. Its showroom sits in Copenhagen’s Frederiksstaden district, close to Marmorkirken — a fitting location for a company whose design language still traces back to 1950s Danish Modern.

Design philosophy

Magnus Olesen positions itself equally between homes and large-scale architectural projects, developing furniture with leading designers and architects rather than an in-house team alone. Durability and longevity are treated as design requirements in their own right, not an afterthought to aesthetics.

Key collaborations

Rud Thygesen and Johnny Sørensen have shaped much of Magnus Olesen’s identity, from the 1973 Doughnut stool, a genuine design icon from the company’s archive, to the 8000 series, relaunched in nine retro colourways in 2022. Niels Jørgen Haugesen’s X-Line chair, built around a minimalist tubular steel frame, has likewise returned to production after decades away. From an earlier generation, Ib Kofod-Larsen’s Pillow Chair and Niels Gammelgaard’s Butterfly Classic Sofa remain in the collection as reissues of Danish design history.

Recent work

More recent collaborators include Says Who, whose Freya Lounge brought a more dynamic silhouette to the range in 2020, and Øivind Slaatto, whose modular Ø Chair was designed to be configured with as few parts as possible — evidence that Magnus Olesen’s archive-driven reissues sit alongside genuinely new design thinking, not instead of it.