Johannes Torpe#prestigediversions | JULY 2019 PRESTIGE 161
J
ohannes Torpe doesn’t shy away from talking
about his personal life, especially where it informs
his work. The designer says he turned a recent
heartbreak into a new sofa for Moroso. “I was
doodling broken hearts, feeling sorry for myself. And then
I thought, ‘This could make a great sofa.’ So I started to
draw more and more, adding details such as the stitching.”
The Heartbreaker sofa, with armrests representing two
halves of a heart, can be complemented by Precious chairs- which came about when Torpe attempted to create an
engagement ring a year earlier – and both feature a metal
base profi le running along the frame that, in the case of the
sofa, lightens its substantial volume.
“The only thing you have in your life is your own story,
and if you dare to share it, you’ll fi nd that it’s very rewarding.
You get so much in return. Many people don’t want to share
their stories because they fear being pointed out. But what
do I have to lose?” the 46-year-old says.
The self-taught designer has had an unusual career path,
expressing his creativity in a wide variety of fi elds, from
music and product design to interior design, all the while
developing a distinctive aesthetic that combines the clear-
cut shapes of his Scandinavian heritage with playfulness.
Raised in a hippy commune in northern Denmark, the
designer, the son of a painter mother and a musician father,
feels he grew up with a pencil in one hand and a drumstick
in the other. He was mostly loosely homeschooled, which
encouraged him to create his own universe.
When he was 12, he moved to Copenhagen and quickly
got his fi rst job in a drum store to avoid further schooling.
By 19, he had founded and sold his fi rst stage light design
company, and invested the proceeds in a struggling
nightclub that he had bought with three partners. This
led to his fi rst major interior design project: the all-white
private members club NASA, a futuristic ode to Stanley
Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, a movie that had left a deep
impression on Torpe as a child.
From then on, his interests evolved organically, coming
to encompass product design, such as the Mormor sofa
for HAY, for which he received the Danish Design Award
in 2007, and a portable laptop table for American offi ce
furniture manufacturer Haworth, which became the fi rst
laptop table to be sold at the Apple store. He also does
spatial design for retailers, offi ces, restaurants and
hotels. Between 2011 and 2015, Torpe even worked
as Group Creative Director for Bang & Olufsen, and
has been credited with injecting new energy into the
high-end consumer electronics brand, developing new
products such as the Beoplay headsets and the Beolit 12,
which won a coveted Red Dot design award in 2012.
The Precious chairs
Torpe created for
Moroso were inspired
by the joy of love