Carl Hansen & Søn

Carl Hansen & Søn is a Danish furniture manufacturer founded in 1908 in Gelsted on Funen, where it still produces today. The company began as a small workshop and built its reputation on cabinetmaking: steam-bent wood, hand-woven paper cord seats and joinery worked to a standard that has changed little in a century.

Its partnership with Hans J. Wegner produced the CH24 Wishbone Chair, still the best-known piece in a catalogue that also includes designs by Arne Jacobsen, Børge Mogensen, Ole Wanscher, Kaare Klint, Poul Kjærholm, Bodil Kjær and Tadao Ando – making the company the world’s largest manufacturer of Wegner furniture. It has stayed family-owned, with Carl Hansen’s grandson Knud Erik Hansen taking over in 2002 and expanding it internationally, while the workshop still trains apprentices in traditional techniques.