Knud V. Engelhardt's sketchwork in Designmuseum Denmark: A draft for a project on the work of Danish architect and designer Knud V. Engelhardt.

TY - CONF

T1 - Knud V. Engelhardt's sketchwork in Designmuseum Denmark

T2 - Nordcode - the Nordic Network for Research on Communicative Product Design; November 2017<br/>

AU - Christensen, Line Hjorth

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - This paper outlines parts of a research project on the Danish architect and design pioneer Knud V. Engelhardt (1882-1931). Engelhardt’s professional engagement and range of design solutions is incredibly rich. It spans from cutlery, embroidery, furniture and working tools for the domestic domain to objects made for the public urban sphere, which shaped the progression of modern living in the first decades of the 20th century: typography and jobbing prints, a variety of identity marks, emblems, stamps and trademarks, posters and urban interior, signs and a complete, well laid-out design for a public transport tram for Copenhagen Tramways (1910). KVE is regarded an industrial design pioneer and has been described as the first Danish functionalist; his work is recorded in the ‘Danish Cultural Canon’ (2006), and since 1933 ‘KVE’s Mindelegat’ (scholarship) has annually been awarded to an outstanding Danish designer who works in the areas he covered. Despite official marks of recognition and his acknowledged position in a Danish design discourse, research on Engelhardt and the contribution he paid to design as a new profession, is sparse. Responding to the Nordcode conference invitation to cast lights and shades on the sketch as a trace of the design process, I approach Knud V. Engelhardt’s work, namely a great collection of sketches held at Design Museum Denmark in Copenhagen. By combining visual, museological and design theoretical approaches my aim in this part of the project is to recognize and explore the sketch as a visual “type” in itself, “discretizing” the object it refers to (Stjernfelt 2000), and which must be interpreted; and to ask if and how the sketches, the designer’s applied notes, and the contextual purposes they were made for, can possibly reveal or add new perspectives and nuances to Engelhardt’s work and to the efforts he paid to Danish design.

AB - This paper outlines parts of a research project on the Danish architect and design pioneer Knud V. Engelhardt (1882-1931). Engelhardt’s professional engagement and range of design solutions is incredibly rich. It spans from cutlery, embroidery, furniture and working tools for the domestic domain to objects made for the public urban sphere, which shaped the progression of modern living in the first decades of the 20th century: typography and jobbing prints, a variety of identity marks, emblems, stamps and trademarks, posters and urban interior, signs and a complete, well laid-out design for a public transport tram for Copenhagen Tramways (1910). KVE is regarded an industrial design pioneer and has been described as the first Danish functionalist; his work is recorded in the ‘Danish Cultural Canon’ (2006), and since 1933 ‘KVE’s Mindelegat’ (scholarship) has annually been awarded to an outstanding Danish designer who works in the areas he covered. Despite official marks of recognition and his acknowledged position in a Danish design discourse, research on Engelhardt and the contribution he paid to design as a new profession, is sparse. Responding to the Nordcode conference invitation to cast lights and shades on the sketch as a trace of the design process, I approach Knud V. Engelhardt’s work, namely a great collection of sketches held at Design Museum Denmark in Copenhagen. By combining visual, museological and design theoretical approaches my aim in this part of the project is to recognize and explore the sketch as a visual “type” in itself, “discretizing” the object it refers to (Stjernfelt 2000), and which must be interpreted; and to ask if and how the sketches, the designer’s applied notes, and the contextual purposes they were made for, can possibly reveal or add new perspectives and nuances to Engelhardt’s work and to the efforts he paid to Danish design.

UR - http://www.nordcode.net

UR - http://www.kalmarkonstmuseum.se/om-kalmar-konstmuseum/designarkivet2/

M3 - Paper

Y2 - 7 November 2017 through 9 November 2017

ER -