Jens Risom

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by: Jessica Whittaker
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Keywords: Jens , Risom , furniture , design , furniture , furnitures , furniture , designers , design , designs ,

Having set up his own institution, the Jens Risom Design, Inc. (JRD) on May 1st, 1946 Jens Risom has never had a second glance backward. Jens Risom Design was one of few companies specializing in modern furniture design at that time when America was recuperating from the pangs of War. He worked solely to create his simple, well-crafted, aesthetically pleasing, quality designs through the Jens Risom Design name. He established a distinction for his company by focusing on the “Risom” name as the solution to the country’s search for aesthetically designed, ingenious and well-crafted contemporary furniture. Risom has designed furniture for famous clients like Richard Avedon and Georg Jensen since then.

In the late 1940s he was assigned to come up with cabinets for the houses being built by Levitt & Sons on Long Island, New York for returning war-fatigued soldiers and their families. These homes needed a sense of design creativity to make them seem expansive and attractive in spite of being constructed low cost and under Federal financing.

As he said himself, he”developed an American version of Scandinavian modern furniture.”

There was great response to his advertisements which were bold. These advertisements carried stylish photographs of Richard Avedon. This made it imperative for Jens Risom Design, in 1954, to expand its manufacturing facilities. Late in the 1950s, JRD started manufacturing office equipments shifting focus from residential furniture. He also brought forth library furniture and hospital accessories as he felt the avenue posed greater scope for expansion and improvement.

JRD was sold to the Dictaphone Corporation by Risom in the year 1970, where he stayed on as chief executive for three years “keeping an eye on the new owners” according to Interiors magazine. From there he later moved on to pursue new interests through his consulting service and free-lance design company, Design Control which was established in 1973, in New Canaan, Connecticut. This is where Jens resides currently, at the age of 92 and still going strong, with his spouse, Henny.

In 1961, Risom was featured on Playboy as a designer who was "revolutionizing furniture in America" along with Harry Bertoia who was a colleague at Knoll and Charles Eames.

Risom has received a plethora of awards. His chairs are on display in many museums like the Yale Museum of Art & Design, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Brooklyn Museum, the R.I.S.D. Museum in Providence and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. In 1996, Risom was knighted with the Danish Knight's Cross by the Danish Queen.

In 1997 Knoll re-manufactured a collection of Risom-designed chairs, tables, chairs and stools that till today are successful parts of the Knoll Studio catalogue. He was the 2004 Honoree of the Russell Wright Award, which is awarded to individuals, institutions and companies that carry forward Wright’s legacy in modern design, landscape design and environmentalism.

Risom’s statement, "good design means that anything which is good by itself will go with other things" laid bare his stylistic philosophy and his exquisite approach to interiors.

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