I’ve been sitting on this blog post since last year’s 3 Days of Design. I can’t remember why I didn’t post it in the end, but I wanted to fix that with a little update from this year’s version of the festival. Because I’ve just got back from a week of design inspiration at 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen. It’s Denmark’s annual design festival where brands, designers, creators and makers open their showrooms and spaces to the public. It offers a unique chance to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse inside studios, real homes and otherwise hidden architectural gems.
Last year, while I was wandering around town making my way from show to show, I stumbled across a sign inviting festival goers up to a private apartment for a new design launch. Instantly intrigued, I made my way up an old, curved staircase to be warmly greeted by Pernille Hell, the founder of design studio and store Sacrecoeur. Stepping inside, I found an extraordinary interior that exuded peace and serenity. I knew that this year I had to make the same trip and return to this space. Not least to escape it all for just a moment. With calm music, curved white furniture and candles flickering in the breeze, it felt like a world away from every other design show.
All images Cate St Hill
Pernille’s stunning, all-white apartment was unlike anything else I had seen. It wasn’t trend driven or shouting to be heard, it was a little oasis amongst the buzz of the festival; a haven of calm and unique character brought to life by its enigmatic host Pernille. The historic setting of a period apartment in central Indre By played host to a rare juxtaposition of the decorative and the futuristic. On paper it probably shouldn’t work – a gilded Louis XVI chair paired with a shiny contemporary aluminium table, for example. But with Pernille’s deft hand and eye for design, the result was a cohesive collection of beautiful objects in the most elegant of settings.
Perhaps why it worked was that, despite the different styles grouped together, everything shared a commonality – soft, fluid forms, curved shapes and comfy, embracing forms.
The space, though minimally decorated, was perfectly curated, with piles of old books and unusual sculptures. Everything seemed like it was placed on purpose and to perfect effect. I loved how it was a window into Pernille’s world.
These images are a mix of last year and this year’s festival. This year the focus was on Pernille’s equally lovely daughter Josefine Hell, who has just graduated from The Royal Danish Academy. For her final project, she created seven metal chairs, each representing the seven different sins. Inspired by the Art Nouveau movement, ‘the free growing wildness of nature’, and the simplicity of the Bauhaus, the chairs are represented as slender lines in space, each piece welded and bent by Josefine herself.
In their beautiful white apartment, these chairs act as sculptures, contrasting with Pierre Paulin’s Groovy chair, Willy Rizzo’s revolving coffee table and Sacrecoeur’s shiny steel collection.
The key pieces from Sacrecoeur’s collection that you can see are the Steel table No. 69, the Cylindro side table in mirror polished steel and the bent steel Monogramme side table. Pernille described how the curve of metal helps soften the clean, shiny surface. The perforated screens that look a little like lego are the Les Volets Sculpture.
All of Sacrecoeur’s designs are made in Denmark and available from their website sacrecoeur.dk along with a selection of classic pieces.
Thank you Pernille and Josefine for letting us into your unique world – I can’t wait to come back again next year.
