Bodil Kjær

She has been featured in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal Magazine. She designed a desk for MIT which was dubbed ‘The most beautiful desk in the world’ and eventually immortalized in 3 early James Bond movies. Danish architect, designer and professor Bodil Kjær (born 1932) is the female trailblazer of Danish midcentury design, who although tutored by modernist master Finn Juhl, in her own words “… never had much interest in following in the footsteps of the Danish rat pack”. Kjær looked to America, inspired by Charles and Ray Eames, and indeed many of her most notable designs stems from her time in the U.S., where she briefly worked at Paul McCobb, before moving to Boston to further her career in corporate interior architecture.

Kjær’s reignited prominence as a designer in later years is well deserved. Pared back, elegant and decidedly modern, her iconic pieces slip effortlessly into contemporary life 60 years on. Today, Bodil Kjær is back in Denmark and lives on the east coast of Jutland where she continues to teach, do research and participate in the architectural development of the city of Aarhus.