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Finn Juhl

29th of June 2011

Kasper Salto and Thomas Sigsgaard to design furniture for the UN

Kasper Salto and Thomas Sigsgaard are the winners of the Danish Arts Foundation’s competition to provide new furniture for the UN headquarters in New York. The Chamber was originally designed and furnished by the Danish architect Finn Juhl and is currently undergoing renovations which will be completed in 2012.

The UN complex in New York is currently undergoing a comprehensive programme of restoration and Denmark has provided financial support for the total refurbishment of the Finn Juhl’s Trusteeship Council Chamber. Denmark is contributing a total of DKK 18 million to the restoration project, with the Realdania Foundation providing DKK 10.5 million and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Danish Ministry of Culture providing the rest.

The Heritage Agency of Denmark will be responsible for ensuring that the restoration is carried out in the spirit of Finn Juhl.

The Design Competition
In December 2010 the Danish Arts Foundation Committee for Crafts and Design invited designers Christian Flindt, Hans Sandgren Jakobsen, Kasper Salto (in partnership with Thomas Sigsgaard), Mia Gammelgaard and Søren Ulrik Petersen to compete for the job of providing new furniture for the Trusteeship Council Chamber. The committee itself is contributing to the financing of this design competition. In addition, the original Finn Juhl chair (FJ51) will be produced to the Trusteeship Chamber.

The challenge for the designers were to design a Secretariat chair, a Secretariat table and a so-called Delegate table, which could be at the same time modern and a natural part of Finn Juhl's original design of the chamber. Finn Juhl made the chamber as Gesamtkunstverk, and the chamber has been worn by many years of use, and a need to expand the interior with new furniture.

The chairman for the panel of judges, architect and head of department with the Heritage Agency of Denmark, Mogens A. Morgen, said: “Kaspar Salto’s and Thomas Sigsgaard’s proposals for new tables and chairs for the UN represent an original new interpretation of Danish design. They have designed pieces of furniture that are very modern, but which also relate very clearly to Finn Juhl’s original designs for the Chamber. They have succeeded quite splendidly in adding a progressive international touch to the simple idiom of the Scandinavian furniture tradition.”

About Kasper Salto and Thomas Sigsgaard
- Kasper Salto (born 1967) trained first as a cabinetmaker and later went on to study at and graduate from the Danish Design School. Kasper Salto works with a number of influential manufacturers of furniture and lighting. He has received several awards for his work, including the Finn Juhl Design Prize in 2010.
- Thomas Sigsgaard (born 1966) is a graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture and has worked for a number of Danish architect firms.
Salto and Sigsgaard set up their own company in 2005.

Read the Judges’ Deliberations (pdf - 4mb)

The 5 design proposals (pdf – 24 mb)

Click on an image to enlarge

Latest update: 29th of June 2011

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Facts about Finn Juhl’s Council Chamber

In 2008 alone, 399 meetings and events took place in Finn Juhl’s Council Chamber, and each year around 400,000 tourists pass through the chamber on guided tours of the United Nations headquarters.

After all the years of intensive use the Council Chamber is now looking very much the worse for wear. Not only that, but after two rebuilding projects undertaken by the UN in 1964 and 1977 the form of the chamber no longer accords with Finn Juhl’s basic intent. The restoration will bring the chamber back to Finn Juhl’s original design, both in its form and its furnishings, while at the same time enabling it to accommodate the UN of today, which has almost four times as many member countries as it had in 1945.

Finn Juhl was just thirty-eight years old when he was commissioned to design the Council Chamber, which stands today as one of his major works. The chamber was designed to form a comprehensive whole. This means that Finn Juhl designed everything in it, from the colourful ceiling light-fittings and the curtains to the wall panelling, carpeting, lamps and chairs.