In his book ‘The Human Stain’ American novelist Philip Roth takes a dig at the Danes when one of his characters – an American with Icelandic and Danish origins – says: “Danes are this way… they’re interested in objects. Objects. Tablecloths. Dishes. Vases. … Everything is made up of objects…” I have to say – to a certain degree I concur. But it’s not just the adoration of objects that’s interesting in Danish society. It’s the fact that it seems to be the same objects.
I always found it a bit funny that whenever we visited friends and family in Denmark, I would keep running into the same items in people’s homes. And those items were always ‘design pieces’. A PH lamp, a Vipp dustbin or a Fritz Hansen chair, to name a few. There were several things I found curious about this phenomenon (other than my total incomprehension of the much loved low-hanging dinner-table lamps, that always seem to obstruct the face of the person sitting across from you, and which I always seem to bang my head against, time and time again). First of all, I found it odd that some of our student friends who barely had enough money to buy coffee (of course now I know one actually has to be quite affluent to afford a cup of coffee in Copenhagen…) would shell out hundreds if not thousands of dollars on a Danish ‘design item’, even if that item was a dustbin placed in the toilet, far from most visitors’ view. This suggested a prioritization in expenditure that was very different from what I’ve seen in New York and London, where people spent most of their money on rent, food and travel rather than on design furniture.
Another thing that intrigued me was the almost compulsive need to have beautiful, well-designed objects in the household, in something that felt like an attempt to create a perfect, immaculate Tom Ford-like home. But most of all what struck me was the uniformity of it. In all households I seemed to encounter the same dustbin, same lamps, same chairs and same kitchenware. Yes, all very aesthetic and classic Danish design items, but all the same. I came to think that this was just a different, more visually pleasing form of a good old herd mentality. How can a nation place such a premium on beauty and creativity on one hand, and on the other hand follow such an extreme form of uniformity, resulting in all houses looking pretty much the same?
Of course there’s more to the Danish obsession with design objects. There’s the long winter months causing families to spend a lot of time indoors and making people want to create cosy, pleasing environments at home (yes, I’m talking about ‘hygge’). There’s the wonderful aspect of a deeply-engrained appreciation for beauty and quality, making Danes want to own aesthetic objects that last a lifetime. There’s the celebration of a domestic design industry that was always streets ahead of the rest of the world. And then there’s the general wish to conform – a typical tribal quality.
So what does it all mean to a foreigner? Well, you can’t fault a culture for creating beautiful and pleasing interiors made up of good quality pieces of furniture and homeware, tastefully designed and visually appealing. It makes for a much more attractive country than places like England and America, not exactly known for their modern interior design of an average home. In fact, it’s rather contagious – within a few weeks of being here I found myself getting that PH lamp, Fritz Hansen chairs and BO Concept sofa myself, in an attempt to create a beautiful ‘hyggelig’ home. But the homogeneity of it can be a touch overwhelming to an outsider’s eyes (some even say ‘eerie’). To most foreigners in Denmark it’s the first and most tangible sign of a culture of conformism.
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