Cecilie Manz
- FURNITURE + PRODUCT DESIGN •
I
’ve always been fascinated by someone
mastering a craft,” says Danish designer
Cecilie Manz. As a child she watched her
parents working in their ceramic studio
and first experienced forming materials
while playing with clay. Her grandmother
was also influential: “... she had good taste
and a very strong sense of creating spaces.”
At the Royal Danish Academy of Fine
Arts, Jørgen Gammelgaard, Niels Jørgen
Haugesen and Peter Hiort-Lorenzen were
inspirational teachers. “There was also a
very fine craftsperson, who had worked
with Arne Jacobsen at Fritz Hansen, who
inspired me to work with wood.” The
manufacturing rights for her graduate
exhibition prototype, Ladder Hochacht
(1998–99), were immediately snapped up.
Two decades later, Cecilie works withThe refined and elegant products
and furniture by designer Cecilie Manz
celebrate the Danish refinement of style.Words by Colin Martinthree assistants and an intern in her central
Copenhagen studio and is internationally
respected. For the January 2018 edition of
Maison & Objet Paris she was honoured
with the appointment of Designer of
the Year. In Paris she exhibited new
“freewheel” projects, following her “own
head” rather than working to commission.
In 2017, having earlier designed its Moku
furniture range, she worked with Japanese
manufacturer Actus on a new project,
for release in 2019. She designs across a
spectrum of materials: metal, glass, clay,
textiles and electronics. “You could say I put
myself between two or ten chairs working
with such diverse fields. But I get to see
all these techniques and details,” she says.
Vilhelm Hammershøi’s paintings of Danish
domestic interiors are influential: “They
show what we already have; the subtle
dull greys, the important light because it’s
so sparse.” For her, light grey is “zero,”
not white, as shown in her tonal palette
in textiles for Georg Jensen Damask and
earthenware for Fritz Hansen.
Cecilie’s light touch as a designerencompasses furniture, such as her aptly
named Airy series of tables for Muuto.
Her use of slender steel frames and thin
laminated plywood tops creates strikingly
geometric forms and silhouettes. They seem
drawn, not welded.
Cecilie co-curated Everyday Life – Signs
of Awareness (2017), a Japanese exhibition
presenting a broader picture of what’s
going on in Denmark. “It was difficult
to limit the curation,” she says. “I can be
very indecisive until I know what I want.”
Based on her designs, when she does
decide, manufacturers and purchasers know
exactly what they want. “Ladder is still in
production, but I’ve entered the stage of my
career where products are discontinued,”
she says. “I think I’ll never get used to that
part.” Undeterred, she remains focused on
designing products that enhance everyday
life. Her “desert island choice” of something
by another designer is telling. She’d take
a bottle of wine from Jasper Morrison’s
vineyard, “which would be very useful
and probably also needed.”
ceciliemanz.com03 04
01
02
05 03 Furniture and product
designer Cecilie Manz.04 Ladder Hochacht was
oneofCecilieManz’sfirst
product designs and is
an object to sit on, rather
than something to climb.05 Moku is a minimalist
furniture range designed
for Actus and Nisson
Mokkou Japan.STUDIO02 The thin, welded frame
of the Airy Table series
forMuuto,available
from Living Edge, is
complemented with
a light, slim tabletop.01 The Caravaggio series
of lamps was designed
by Cecilie Manz for Light
Years and is available
from Cult.