Montana

About

Montana is a Danish furniture company that produces modular storage and shelving systems, together with tables, chairs and seating, for homes and workplaces. It describes itself as family-owned and trades as Montana Furniture A/S, with its headquarters and factory at Akkerupvej 16 in Haarby, a town on the island of Funen in Denmark. The company states that all Montana modules are designed, developed and made in Denmark. Montana was founded in 1982 by Peter J. Lassen (1930-2019), who also designed the Montana System. After leaving school he entered the Danish navy and served five years as a naval officer, then joined the company of his father-in-law, Fritz Hansen Furniture, where he went on to become chief executive; he had married Birgitte, née Fritz Hansen. His time there ended in 1979, and on departure he bought the rights to the '60 x 60' shelving-unit concept he had developed, using the following three years to develop Montana. The company's own account explains the name: it reads as international, its three syllables evoke the rhythm of the modular system, and in Danish it plays on the verb montere, to assemble. Lassen was made a Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog in 2010 and remained active in the company until his death in August 2019. The product the company is built around is the Montana System, in production since 1982. At launch it consisted of 36 different modules in four depths and a few colours. It is still offered as 36 basic modules in four depths, now in 43 finishes, made in 12 mm MDF, and it can be specified suspended on a wall or set on legs, a plinth or castors, with shelves, drawers, doors with handles or push openings, glass doors, trays and lighting selected module by module. Montana describes the design DNA of the system as rounded edges, missing corners and retracted fronts, which Lassen explained as the result of removing parts from an abstract square box in the way a sculptor works a stone. Colour is a defined part of the range. Montana develops a new colour palette every eight years, and the current palette was created with the Danish colour and textile designer Margrethe Odgaard, who graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Design in Copenhagen in 2005, also studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, and won the Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize in 2016. The palette was presented in May 2019, with 30 new colours that Lassen developed with Odgaard shortly before his death, and further colours including Ruby, Acacia and Clay have been added since. Beyond the core system, Montana's ranges include Montana Mini, Montana Free, Montana Mega, Montana Selection, Montana Cargo, Montana Lockers, Montana Hall, Montana Noticeboard, Montana TV & Sound, Skyline, HiLow and the Montana Wardrobe, along with tables and seating. The company manufactures the Kevi chair series designed by Jørgen Rasmussen (1931-2024), who began working for Kevi A/S in 1958 and drew a chair that by the 1960s had become a multi-purpose work chair for office and home; Rasmussen also devised the Kevi double-wheel castor in 1965, for which he received the ID Prize and which was included in the Danish Cultural Canon in 2006. The Kevi series now runs to 16 chair and stool models. Montana has relaunched several designs by Verner Panton, among them the Panton One chair, the Panton Table, Panton Wire and the Pantonova seating system of 1971, and in 2003 the company received Bo Bedre magazine's Classic Award for resuming production of Panton One. Other pieces come from Erik Magnussen (1940-2014), who designed the stackable Chairik chair and the Foldit folding table; Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, who designed the height-adjustable SHL Table in 2007; Jakob Wagner, who designed the JW Table in 2017 and the Montana Free shelving system in 2018; Kasper Mose, credited with the Moser Table; and Erik Rasmussen, whose modular sofa system of 1969, formerly known as the Paustian Modular Sofa, Montana reintroduced as Paradigm. Production has never been moved out of Denmark. The Haarby site handles processing, painting and assembly, and the company says more than 140 people work there. Montana introduced its own environmental accounting in 1996, in consultation with the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, having established a management system for environment and work environment in 1993; it moved to water-based primers in 1997 and to water-based lacquers throughout in 2007, obtained the Danish Indoor Climate Label in 2001, was awarded the EU Ecolabel in 2019, switched its Funen production to district heating in 2020, and gained PEFC certification in 2022, after which most of its MDF products are made from PEFC-certified wood. The European Commission's EU Ecolabel product catalogue records Montana Furniture A/S in Denmark as the holder of furniture licences DK/049/003, DK/049/013, DK/049/024, DK/049/065 and DK/049/067, covering series that include the Montana System, Montana Mini, Montana Free, Skyline, Panton One, Panton Table, Pantonova, Panton Wire, Chairik, Kevi and the Paradigm modular sofa. The Danish Indoor Climate Labelling scheme lists Montana under closed shelving and cabinets. Montana gives a ten-year guarantee covering design, moving parts and functionality on correctly mounted and correctly loaded shelving, and five years on chairs, wash basins and electronic and hydraulic components. Joakim Lassen, the founder's youngest son, joined the business in 1999 when it acquired the furniture company DJOB; the two companies merged in 2009 and he was appointed Director of Design and Communication, then succeeded his father as chief executive in 2015. He is the fifth generation of his family to work with furniture and a great-grandson of the manufacturer Fritz Hansen. Montana Furniture A/S is registered in the Danish CVR register as an aktieselskab under number 66652912 at the Haarby address, with Montana Møbler A/S among its recorded secondary names, and the register lists the holding company RDS Gruppen Invest ApS, at that same address, as holding 100 per cent of the shares and voting rights since 6 October 2020 and between 90 and 99.99 per cent before that. Montana furniture is used in homes and in contract interiors, and the company groups its project applications as workstations, conference and meeting rooms, lounge and reception areas, libraries and archives, hospitality, and cafés and canteens; its published project references include Oslo City Hall, Chalmers University, Jyske Bank Glaskuben, Acne Studios, Stevns Klint Experience and Poul Schmith/Kammeradvokaten. Products reach buyers through Montana retailers and dealers internationally, with only part of the range shown online, and through the company's flagship store in Copenhagen and showrooms in Copenhagen and Oslo, while architects, designers and project buyers are handled by Montana's own sales team.