Contact: k.kamedula@privat.dk
Erik Ole Jørgensen
ARCHITECT & DESIGNER
EXHIBITIONS
Architect Erik Ole Jørgensen received several awards for his exhibition design.
Including Bella Centers spatial award 1980, 1982, 1986 and 1994 for the stand he created for Kvadrat.
Poul Byriel wrote the following obituary in the October issue of Kvadrat News 2002 (No. 16):
You cannot overrate Erik Ole Jørgensen’s impact on Kvadrat’s design line and evolution right from 1971 and up until he passed away in 2002. His imprint on notions of concepts such as quality, simplicity and integrity will remain palpable throughout the design and marketing for many years to come. His approach was systematic and consistent in every way.
When he first contacted Kvadrat A/S in 1971, Erik Ole Jørgensen was already well-established as a furniture designer. He had been exhibiting at the Danish Carpenter Guild’s fall exhibitions, where his designs had won first prize on several occasions. He had also been providing designs to a number of our well-known manufacturers, including Erik Jørgensen Møbelfabrik in Svendborg on the island of Funen.
While pursuing a career as an independent designer, he also served as artistic advisor for one of the period’s major textile companies, L.F. Foght, and as exhibition designer for the furniture coalition BRA BOHAG in Sweden, where his trade-fair and exhibition concepts received great acclaim.
The collaboration started out with two simple stripe designs, dessins ERIK and OLE, made with cotton flake and primarily targeting young people. These were created after he – with trademark dry humor and slight touch of sarcasm – had declared that Kvadrat’s collection was allright, he supposed, but he could do a better job himself; a statement he was then asked to prove. This he would do continually over the following 30 years by supplying Kvadrat with a string of good fabrics designs for either furniture or curtains. Examples include the first fire-resistant furniture fabrics, FLAMEGATE and FIREGATE, and an associated curtain collection, NEWGATE. The idea of fire-proofing fabrics for the home was brand-new and unheard of at the time.
Another high came with the development of upholstery fabrics in Icelandic wool, of which his extensive series ISLAND, wit its melange of wool-dyes in pastels, half-tones and darker shades, would go on to become a veritable smash hit and ended up being plagiarised by every other textile brand in Scandinavia. This was later followed by the worsted fabrics CARDINAL, MOLLY og MALONE and the development of felt types – dessin NESTOR – with couloured neps (small knots or clusters of fibre) embedded in the fabric.
Curtains made from Trevira CS, a new fibre material that Kvadrat had HOECHST make as the first. The resulting material could be spinned in fibre lengths similar to cotton, thus producing a type of yarn that was matte, soft and fell softly like cotton, instead of the highly artificial types that were otherwise available on the market.
Designs such as TRIM, TIME and AIR, and TIVOLI exemplify the development that was put in motion.
Every exhibition and trade fair that Kvadrat A/S did over more than 30 years was conceived and designed by Erik Ole Jørgensen. He curated them so that they, in a simple, lucid manner, reflected the textile manufacturer’s visions of design and quality.
Timeless, popular designs such as TIME (1987) or AIR are still being produced by Kvadrat A/S in Ebeltoft.
Here used at Novartis Campus, Basel, Switzerland.
TIME is Erik Ole Jørgensen’s flagship when it comes to curtain designs. On the market ever since the lauch in 1987, the monochrome curtain fabric makes you wonder why it is not called ‘Timeless’, since it exudes a timelessness that is demonstrated by its enduring popularity with buyers.
TIME used to be part of a curtain collection in a light bunting quality. This was the fist time Kvadrat was able to present Trevira in a matte quality that looks like natural fibres but has all the advantages of synthetic fibres.
‘With TIME, my intention was to create a fabric series that induces a sense of calm but also provides fresh colour impressions’, as Erik Ole Jørgensen explained at the launch.
Textiles designed for Kvadrat include: Erik, Ole, Flamegate, Firegate, Newgate, Plaza, Island, Island Point, Island Tern, Beta, Gamma, Cardinal, Molly, Nestor, Cane, Basta, Multi, Plura, Air, Oval, Solo, Duo, Quattro, Cardinal, Neptun, Tirane, Tropical, Malone, Komma, Punktum, Time and Time 2000 curtain fabric (1987), Trim curtain fabric (1987), Granit furniture fabric (1992), Tivoli curtain fabric, (1996), Tundra furniture fabric (1997), Flora furniture fabric (1997), Frame curtain fabric (1999).
TIME RECYCLED is an elaborate version of TIME.
Curtain fabrics AIR, TIME, TIME RECYCLED