Client /TDC
Design/2003Danish Design Pavilion for the 1st Taiwan Creative Design Expo.
In 2003 the Taiwan Design Center requested us to design, curate and construct a Danish Design Pavilion for the 1st Taiwan Creative Design Expo.
The intention of this, the only foreign pavilion at the Expo, was to demonstrate the power of Scandinavian design in everyday life. We named the exhibition 「Elegant Simplicity」 and set about designing an environment that would reflect the atmosphere and cultural values of the Danish home. Four islands in the middle of the pavilion represent four intimate social spaces: a breakfast table, a living room, an entertainment room and a dining table. Well-known Danish products, from LEGO to B&O, ECCO to Georg Jensen, Royal Copenhagen to Bodum were sourced to populate each scene while famous Danish chairs and tables brought luxury to each tableau. Around the walls were hung panels carrying the story of Danish Design, the past on the entrance side, the present on the exit side. Apart from portraits of famous through the 20th century and young designers emerging in the 21st , we also introduced the key exhibiting companies.
Each tableau was built at floor-height to demonstrate the human scale and democratic accessibility of Danish Design. Special care was taken with the ceilings and tableau floors which were made of Danish wood and the lighting which was bright, warm and clean. At the far end of the pavilion we built a display-case specially to show the work of Georg Jensen and on either side we built two benches for people to rest and review the space. The walls we painted white and the floor carpet was red, the colours of the Danish flag.
The result was a space entirely different from the Taiwanese part of the Expo, a place where visitors could breathe and enjoy the simple elegance of Danish Design. The pavilion was full of people from morning to night, every day of the Expo, from school children for whom this was a first introduction to the world of design, to design professionals making a pilgrimage to the design they admired most collected together in one place for the first time in Taiwan . The pavilion was judged a great success and made a big impression on visitors and client alike.
