Hans Bølling | ScandinavianDesign.com

Hans Bølling is a Danish architect and designer whose work spans town halls and housing as well as wooden toys and furniture. He is best known for the Bølling Tray Table from 1963 and for the wooden Duck. Since 2022 he has been adding new furniture to his collection with Brdr. Krüger.

Background

Hans Bølling was born in 1931 in Brabrand, Aarhus. He studied textile printing at the School of Arts and Crafts in Copenhagen and completed a carpentry apprenticeship. In 1959 he graduated as an architect from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.

For much of his early career he worked in the practice of his father-in-law, the architect Axel Wanscher. There he worked on municipal buildings, housing, villas and Øresundskollegiet, a student residence in Copenhagen. He opened his own studio alongside it in 1960. Later projects include the Tokai University boarding school in Præstø.

Design approach

Bølling has always worked between architecture and objects, drawing by hand and testing ideas in wood. His furniture shares an architectural sense of proportion, clear lines and a recurring signature detail. A sense of play is never far away. In an interview with Wallpaper* he said: “I always say my career has been spent playing, not working.”

Key designs

His earliest objects were wooden figures: the dog Oscar from 1953 and the Duck from the late 1950s, which is still in production. The Tray Table followed in 1963. It began as a prototype made in a single day and is part of Designmuseum Danmark’s permanent collection. Brdr. Krüger has produced it since 1990, and it regularly returns in new colours and limited editions.

In 2022 Designmuseum Danmark released a blue edition of 500 tables. In 2026 Brdr. Krüger marked its 140th anniversary with the 140 Remix Edition in oiled and fumed oak. The Triiio table, sketched in 1958, went into production in 2017.

The HB Collection

At 3daysofdesign 2022, Brdr. Krüger presented The Home of Hans Bølling, an exhibition that recreated his home and study. It also launched three new pieces developed from the Tray Table: the HB Coffee Table, the HB Stool and his first lounge chair. The collection has since grown with a rectangular coffee table and new upholstery options for the lounge chair and stool. His collaboration with Brdr. Krüger has now spanned three generations of the family.

By Editorial Team, ScandinavianDesign.com