Copenhagen is the UNESCO World Capital of Architecture 2023. As a tribute to architecture, the theme of this year’s Cabinetmakers’ Autumn Exhibition – A Piece for a Place – is to design a piece of furniture for a specific place in the capital. The exhibition invites the audience on a site-specific architectural furniture tour of the Danish capital, where 35 furniture designs shine a new light on the relationship between architecture and furniture design. The tour includes both hidden gems and familiar buildings and urban spaces in Copenhagen. The exhibition is on display at the Tunnel Factory in Nordhavn from 28 October to 26 November 2023.
Architecture and furniture design are closely related disciplines. Both have a focus on form, materials, function and scale. Both affect their surroundings and add new qualities to the places they occupy. Many architects also designed furniture, and the Danish capital is home to a string of architectural Gesamtkunstwerke, total works of art where the two disciplines merge into a unified whole. With this year’s theme, ‘A Piece for a Place’, the Cabinetmakers’ Autumn Exhibition joins the celebration of Copenhagen as a capital of architecture by revisiting the tradition of site-specific furniture; a tradition that has resulted in some of the most iconic Danish furniture classics. This year, the exhibitors were asked to create a piece of furniture for a specific architectural place in Copenhagen of their own choice. The goal is to allow for a contemporary interpretation of the role of furniture in architecture.
The exhibition highlights the interplay between architecture and furniture, an encounter that gives rise to new spaces as the furniture interprets, interacts with and challenges architecture. The exhibits invite the audience to join the individual designers on their unique and personal exploration of Copenhagen. This tour of the city is guided by their choice of places that they have a particular affinity for or find especially inspiring. The new furniture adds new dimensions to familiar places and highlights new urban spaces that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.
Some exhibits reflect a building’s ornamentation, some add new functionality, and others focus on a specific aspect of a building by highlighting it, blowing it up, interpreting it or otherwise creating a new space-in-space. The furniture is present, gets in the way, blends in or stands out. All the new designs are celebrations of architecture, creating new constellations that contribute to a broader interpretation and experience of existing settings in the capital, big and small, indoors and out. The furniture adds an extra dimension to the architecture or urban space it addresses. The exhibition celebrates and explores the inspiring encounter of furniture and architecture in Copenhagen.
This year’s Cabinetmakers’ Autumn Exhibition is presented at the Tunnel Factory in Copenhagen’s Nordhavn district from 28 October to 26 November 2023.
