At the invitation of designers Sébastien El Idrissi and Sara de Campos, I was asked to contribute to an exhibition centered around the Korshage house in Rørvig, Denmark. Realized in 1960 by architect Erik Korshagen as his summer home, the house is situated within a nature reserve and notable for the use of vernacular building methods, which Korshagen executed with a finesse that surpasses any of regionalism’s nostalgic trappings. He built the house with a massive thatched roof, adapting a traditional building technology as a departure from modern convention, reasoning that he “would have built a flat roof if the site was flat, but the roof on a slope naturally has a high pitch.”
Recognizing that interpreting Korshagen through anything other than his methodology would likely undercut the house's significance, I responded with a bench that develops from a similar attitude. It’s an informal adaptation of fireside settles: rigid, high-backed benches found in homes across Europe from the 10th century onward. Considering how living dynamics have progressed, the scale and posture fall closer to a double-wide easy chair, reflecting a contemporary condition where the fireplace (and the living room with it) has become more a central lounge than a means of central heating.
Recognizing that interpreting Korshagen through anything other than his methodology would likely undercut the house's significance, I responded with a bench that develops from a similar attitude. It’s an informal adaptation of fireside settles: rigid, high-backed benches found in homes across Europe from the 10th century onward. Considering how living dynamics have progressed, the scale and posture fall closer to a double-wide easy chair, reflecting a contemporary condition where the fireplace (and the living room with it) has become more a central lounge than a means of central heating.