Arcus console shelf, natural oil oak

The slender yet versatile shape of Aakjaer Furniture's Arcus console shelf represents functional design at its purest. Designer Nanna Aakjær set out to find the best possible balance between beauty and practicality without either one having to give way, and as you can see, the result speaks for itself.

The clean, softly curved form of the oak Arcus shelf nods to the traditions of Danish design, especially to the legacy of Danish designer Jørgen Aakjær Jørgensen, who happened to be Nanna's grandfather. But despite that heritage, the Arcus feels anything but dated. The versatile console shelf is easy to imagine as a handy extra surface in the hallway or as a bedside table beside the bed.

Nanna Aakjær

Aakjaer Furniture's story goes back to 1948, when the Danish carpenter Jørgen Aakjær Jørgensen and his wife Lis Aakjær Jørgensen set up a furniture workshop called Møbelintarsia in southwest Jutland. The small workshop soon grew into a family business, employing more than fifteen cabinetmakers. Jørgensen had trained in Sweden in intarsia, an old wood inlay technique, and it became the signature of his furniture during the golden age of Danish design.

The Møbelintarsia factory closed in the 1980s, but in 2017, Jørgensen's granddaughter Nanna Aakjær Svendsen set out to bring her grandfather's classics back. It was no easy task: no technical drawings had survived, so Nanna tracked down and bought original pieces to work out how they had once been built. The effort paid off, and today Aakjaer Furniture carries that same craft tradition forward, adapted to the way people live now.