Fritz Hansen

About

Fritz Hansen is a Danish furniture house known internationally for Scandinavian design and for manufacturing several of the most recognised chairs of twentieth-century Danish furniture. The company traces its origin to 1872, when the cabinetmaker Fritz Hansen obtained a trade licence in Copenhagen and began working in wood. In 1885 he established a furniture production business under his own name, and the enterprise grew over the following decades into an industrial furniture manufacturer. Today the company is often referred to by its formal name, "Republic of Fritz Hansen," and its headquarters remain in Allerød, a town north of Copenhagen. The company's early reputation was built on woodworking technique. In 1915 Fritz Hansen introduced a chair made of steam-bent wood, and the firm later became closely associated with moulded plywood and laminated wood construction. These manufacturing methods, which allow thin layers of veneer to be shaped into strong, curved shells, became central to the products that brought the company its widest recognition. Much of that recognition stems from the collaboration between Fritz Hansen and the Danish architect and designer Arne Jacobsen. The partnership produced a series of chairs that remain in production. The Ant chair, introduced in 1952, is a lightweight three-legged stacking chair formed from a single piece of moulded plywood. It was followed by the Series 7 chair in 1955, a stackable moulded plywood chair that became one of the company's best-selling products. In 1957 the Grand Prix chair was introduced, taking its name from a prize awarded at a Milan design exhibition. In 1958 Jacobsen designed two upholstered moulded-shell chairs, the Egg and the Swan, for the lobby and lounge areas of the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen. The Egg chair, a high-backed swivel lounge chair built around a moulded foam shell, became one of the most widely reproduced and most identifiable pieces of Danish furniture. A second important body of work in the Fritz Hansen catalogue is associated with the designer Poul Kjærholm, who worked primarily in steel combined with leather, cane and other materials. His PK series, including the PK22 lounge chair from 1956, contrasts with the moulded-wood pieces through its use of polished steel frames. The Kjærholm collection was incorporated into the Fritz Hansen range in 1982, broadening the company's catalogue of reissued design classics. Alongside its historical reissues, Fritz Hansen works with contemporary designers and has expanded beyond seating into tables, lighting and accessories. Designers associated with the company's later collections include Cecilie Manz, Kasper Salto and others, and the firm continues to release new products as well as anniversary and re-edition versions of its established designs. In terms of markets, Fritz Hansen serves both residential customers and the contract sector, supplying offices, hospitality projects such as hotels and restaurants, and other commercial interiors, as well as outdoor furniture lines. Its products are sold through company showrooms, authorised retailers and design stores internationally, and authentic examples of pieces such as the Egg chair carry serial numbers as a means of identification. The combination of mid-century design classics and ongoing collaborations places the company in the high-end segment of the furniture market. Ownership of the company sits within a Danish foundation structure. Fritz Hansen A/S is held through Skandinavisk Holding A/S, which became fully owned by Chr. Augustinus Fabrikker, a foundation-owned investment company, in 2025 following the buyout of a remaining minority stake. Through this structure the business is ultimately connected to the Augustinus Foundation, one of Denmark's larger private charitable foundations. The company remains based in Allerød, Denmark, where it has operated for more than a century, and its name endures as a reference point for Danish furniture and Scandinavian design.