Showroom

Fritz Hansen

Danish furniture, lighting, and accessories. Founded 1872, with work by Arne Jacobsen and Hans J Wegner.

Fritz Hansen is a Danish furniture maker founded in 1872, with its works north of Copenhagen, and the New York flagship is a street level room at 22 Wooster Street in SoHo.

What the showroom carries is the house's own production rather than a represented range. Fritz Hansen makes Arne Jacobsen's furniture and Poul Kjaerholm's, and works with Hans Wegner, Cecilie Manz, Piero Lissoni and Jaime Hayon among living designers. That combination is the reason to visit: a room where mid century Danish production and current work stand together settles quickly whether a scheme wants one, the other, or both.

The Jacobsen pieces are the ones most often specified from photographs and most often misjudged in the room. They are smaller than their reputation and they sit lower, and a lounge chair chosen from an image can arrive reading as a side chair against a tall window.

Upholstery is where the showroom earns a second visit. The same frame in leather and in wool reads as two different pieces, and Fritz Hansen's leathers age rather than wear, which is a conversation to have with a client before the order rather than after the first summer.

The showroom is open to the public on weekdays from 9 to 5 and takes no appointment. Weekends are by appointment. Use the weekend slot when a client is being brought rather than a designer looking alone.

Sit in the actual model and measure the seat height before it goes on a plan. These are pieces whose proportions are famous and whose dimensions are not, and a dining chair that is right in every other respect will still be wrong under a table it was never sized for.