1922 - Herbert Krenchel is born in Frederiksberg, Copenhagen.

1953 - Herbert Krenchel makes the first drawings of the Krenit bowl. Already half a year later the A-bowl and the C-bowl is introduced on an exhibition in Forum,Copenhagen.

1954 - The Krenit bowl wins a gold medal at the Triennial in Milan,Italy

1961 - The Danish interior magazine “Bo Bedre” is published for the first time. The Krenit bowl is on the cover.

1964 - The production of Krenit stops. Since 1953 more than 1 million Krenit bowls have been produced. Until 2009 the Krenit bowl is only available via auctions and flea markets around the world.

1964 - Herbert Krenchel is the first to receive the award ”Betonprisen” for his work. At the same time he is named Dr. tech because of his paper about “Fibrous Reinforcement”.

2009 - Krenit bowl is yet again available for Krenit lovers around the world as Normann Copenhagen puts it into production as collaboration with Herbert Krenchel.

2010 - The Krenit bowl is launched in more colours and sizes and is now available in six sizes and six colours.

2012 - Herbert Krenchel turns 90 years on April 16th.

Happy Birthday Herbert from all of us in Normann Copenhagen.

Our new Beater designed by Ding3000 has just received the Red Dot Award: Product Design 2012. With its different and innovative designs Beater impressed the Jury and won the prestigious design competition. We are of course really proud of this.

More than 1,800 manufactures and designers from 58 countries participated in the battle of winning the exclusive award, which is a quality proof for aesthetic and lasting design. In total 4,515 products were judged by 30 International Jury members.

Award-winning Designtrio
Besides Red Dot Award 2012, Ding3000 won the Good Design Award 2011 for the Rainbow Trivet earlier this year. Beater has also already gained lots of attention at its launch in spring 2012. The British design magazine Wallpaper has for example chosen Beater as new and standout pieces in the interior special (W*157).

Here at the Normann Copenhagen HQ we always think it is exciting to get to know a bit more about the designers. Therefore we have asked Ding3000 some questions about their way of work, how Beater came about and their latest inspirations.

Why do you think Beater has won the prestigious Red Dot Award?
“It’s difficult to say what’s going on in the heads of a design jury, but I guess it’s probably because besides all shape, material or colour issues we have a useful product innovation here. An usual eggbeater is quite a space consuming object and one of only a few kitchen tools which can not be stored away in a drawer. We found a solution for this problem by making our whisk foldable.”

Both Rainbow Trivet and Beater Whisk have won an award within 2 months. What characterizes a typical Ding3000 product?
“We try to design products which offer a benefit in multiple ways. It can be a product which is a classical problem-solver like the BEATER whisk. But we think it’s also worth to design products which

- are more beautiful because they evoke positive associations or reminiscences
- bring a little bit of magic in everyday’s life because they work with a trick or legerdemain
- put smiles on faces because they are enriched by a healthy dose of humour”

Is there a fun story behind the design of a foldable whisk?
“Actually there is: One of us did a very poor drawing of a whisk which was inspired by a bunch of straw tied together with a rope but with no additional function. Then somebody else misunderstood the drawing and said: Wow: A foldable whisk! So our advice to all the designers in the world: Always draw poorly that someone can misunderstand your design and finally make your product better.”

What was the first dish you made with Beater?
“Since the Pannarello of our espresso machine is not working, we use it to froth the milk for our coffee in the office.”

How is a typical Ding3000 day at the office?
“Unfortunately we are spending too much time sitting in front of our computers checking E-mails but we try hard to focus on the things which make us better and more creative designers like sketching, arsing around, being lazy, walk the dog, building quick mock-ups, going to the hardware store, discussing with the manufacturer etc.”

Can you mention the last five things that inspired you for a new design?

1. A folding yardstick
2. The Yangzhou Mountains
3. Building Bricks
4. A five pockets jeans
5. A race track

Buy your own Beater here.

Nordic, Raw and Playful
The NOMA Lab is connected to NOMA situated in a former warehouse on the national registry of protected buildings.  The tight restrictions meant that GXN was required to design the interior without using so much as one single nail in the walls or flooring.  The approach was to design four central multi-functional storage units; each composed from over five hundred uniquely formed wooden cubes. Curving playfully throughout the space, these units divide the 200M2 room into smaller areas accommodating the Food Lab, the herb garden, staff areas and office.  Raw and simple, through colours and forms, it captures a unique Nordic aesthetic.  True to the restaurant’s philosophy, the NOMA Lab is developed exclusively using Nordic materials.

The organic forms of the furniture pieces stand out through use of integrated light features, which also give the interior a lighter feel.  The additional lighting is provided by Normann Copenhagen and GXN’s specially developed STAR lamp, developed for NOMA whose reflective light casts dramatic geometric shadows into the surroundings.

As the number one ranked restaurant for two years in a row, the expectations for creative innovation at NOMA are higher than ever before. Therein lay the need for an inspiring ‘experimentarium’ where chefs could continue to take their skills further in the evolution and development of Nordic cuisine.  This commission was given to 3XN’s Innovation Unit, GXN, whose experimental design was an excellent match for NOMA’s innovative gastronomy.

Head of GXN, Kasper Guldager Jørgensen refers to the project as an Architectural Cookbook and says of the collaboration, ‘We move in parallel worlds.  NOMA’s dedicated and creative engagement in gastronomy is similar in many ways to GXN’s experimental take on new materials and ingredients in the architectural world.’

We are happy to announce that our colourful and decorative Rainbow Trivet, designed by the German design trio Ding3000, has been awarded the prestigious 2011 GOOD DESIGN Award.

From the designers point of view:

“Design has a magical ability to make products desirable as opposed to merely functional. When we developed Rainbow Trivet it was a question of finding the optimal folding mechanism, making the finished trivet both aesthetically attractive and practical to use. Rainbow Trivet has a playful expression and looking at the colours puts you in a good mood.” 

The award is hosted by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture & Design and Metropolitan Arts Press Ltd and is awarded for quality designs of the highest form, function and aesthetic appearance. GOOD DESIGN Award was established in Chicago in 1950 by Edgar J. Kaufmann Jr. in collboration with design pioneers such as Eero Saarinen, Charles & Ray Eames and Florence Knoll.

The winners are:

Most creative idea

Philip Christensen, turned the Norm 06 lamp, a swing vase, and a Krenit Salad set into a beautiful swan. Congratulations!

Best Craftmanship

Congratulations to Emma Sivell!
From the first time we saw the three bears we fell in love with them. It takes quite an imagination and craftmanship to turn a wine stopper, the Kula hooks and the fusion ladle into three bears.

Most liked picture on Facebook. 

Just like last year we let our fans on Facebook pick their favourite. And this year it was “Pip” by Tanja Nørgaard, with more than 200 Likes. Congratulations.

See all the submissions on Facebook or Flickr

Their latest feature of adding recipes for drinks and food is mind-blowing and plays with almost all your senses. Still nor Scope or we have figured out how to have add smell and taste to the online experience – but mouth-watering it is.

Experience for yourself and start cooking – no need to understand Japanese:)

Scope always gives the presentations of Normann Copenhagen´s products a Japanese spin, taking storytelling to a higher level.

Our Japanese friend and online partner Scope is well known by the keen followers of spottedbynormanncopenhagen.com. But it is very likely that only a few have visited their great website and experienced their stunning presentations.

Read the blog post A japanese man fell in love with Gry´s Mormor

All we can say is:

At the Normann Copenhagen flagship store in Copenhagen, we have mixed brands and products that we love, trying to create inspiring settings of lifestyle and shopping experience. One of the trendsetters of the design industry has set new standards taking a brand showroom to a whole new level.

The Swiss furniture company Vitra has a stunning collection of world class architecture at their Weil am Rhein location in the crossing between Germany, Switzerland and France. We find the Vitra house from 2010 to be the best of this impressiv collection covering some of the biggest names around.

The Reception

Elephant kindergarten

Create your own wish list as you go along

Taking the idea of color samples to a whole new level.

Vitra Showroom kitchen

Respect to Vitra for their vision and focus on their home collection – best brand showroom we have ever seen. The fact that they have made it into a museum like experience with a brillant gift shop and a ”NIKEID like” shop in shop to specify your own EAMES lounge chair takes it to the top.

Seriousness with a superb touch of humour and love for great design.

Claydies a.k.a. Karen Kjældgård-Larsen and Tine Broksø

One project from Claydies is True feelings where they designed a raw and romantic porcelain series blindfolded… we don’t know if they in fact were naked during the process… we will ask them next time they drop by the Normann HQ.

Killing a vase! – part of the Chamber of horrors exhibition at Malmö Art Museum.

A ceramicist´s worst nightmare was Claydies contribution to thinking out of the box when it comes to creative use of clay. They exhibited the murder of 12 clay pots at the Malmö Art Museum.

The making of the Grass vase

At Normann Copenhagen we are proud to produce 3 of Claydies designs. The Grass vase, the True feelings candle holder and the beautiful woolen rugs Dahlia which will be back in stock this summer.

Claydies just published their very own magazine full of fun (like a Claydies Crosswords) and exciting stories… it’s a must read for anyone who like creativity and design.

What do you do if you live on a small iceland in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and you want to attract the attention of the rest of the design world?

By March 24-27th we have been attending the 2011 edition of Design March in Reykjavik, Iceland.

With its mid Atlantic location and a headcount of little over 300.000 heads of all ages, it is really impressive to see their involvement and dedication towards spreading their viewpoints on design.

Like Denmark, Iceland is a small nation, with a low headcount. With much less of a Design tradition, design institutions and design network, it is mindblowing what they have been able to achive in only 3 years of running the Design March.

We truly  believe that living on an Island in the Middle of the Atlantic Ocean makes you tough and creative.

Again and again it shows that it is never about the money, but about the core dedication of the involved partners. Where else would you see that the best retailers, designers of all levels, the industry, the ministers, the president and most importantly the Icelantic consumers teaming up to support such events?

You wanna know how you can create such an even for the smallest of budget?

Show your respect to the following TEAM of the Islantic Design Center.

Lilja Gunnarsdóttir, Guest Coordinator

Edda Sigurjondóttir, Project Manager & Poul Madsen, CEO Normann Copenhagen

Kristín Gunnarsdóttir, Project Manager

Þórey Vilhjálmsdóttir  & Greipur Gíslason, Project Manager

Halla Helgadóttir, Managing Director

How awesome is this. Imagine taking a shower but instead of drops of water falling on you – its Lego bricks. Well now you can. The super creative people from Billund has created the worlds first Lego brick shower. Spotted in Copenhagen during the Lego World expo.

Related blogposts:

The secret behind Danish design revealed today

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