“Where can I read and study about the architect Grethe Meyer?” is a question I have been faced with many times since I took over the management of Grethe Meyer’s legacy and portfolio. The answer at the time was that it was possible here and there in books about Danish Design, where Grethe could be mentioned in connection with her greatest successes: Blåkant, Boligens Byggeskabe & the Stub glass series. But it was always a chapter sandwiched between all the other – mostly – golden boys from the golden age of Danish design. In 2024, we changed that picture by finally giving Grethe the design biography she was entitled to with “GRETHE MEYER – THE ARCHITECT WHO REVOLUTIONIZED THE DINNER TABLE”, written by @christinabkjeldsen and published at @forlagetgyldendal.
The story of the architect Grethe Meyer lies in the tension between design, culture and women’s history, and her design stems from some of the biggest cultural movements and changes for the Danish home in the 20th century. At the same time, it is also the story of a complex woman’s life as an architect, single mother and norm-breaker.
Throughout her life, Grethe Meyer had her professional gaze focused on family life, the kitchen and the dinner table. She has created the Blåkant tableware, which elevates everyday meals, and which have been on the table in a record number of Danish homes over several decades.
She has set a new direction for cooking with the stoneware series Ildpot, researched the Danes’ housing needs and kitchen habits – and she has designed viable furniture with her friend and lover Børge Mogensen.
She worked to make the everyday important, functional and beautiful. As a female architect she acted in a time when her male colleagues dominated the scene for Danish design and furniture art – but Grethe Meyer was there from the beginning and has drawn her own lines for the life in freedom and peace that her generation of idealistic architects worked for. There is a reason why the things we surround ourselves with look the way they do, and Grethe Meyer’s watchful eye on her contemporaries is a beautiful example of just that.
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