Preben Fabricius & Jørgen Kastholm

Background

Preben Fabricius (1931–1984) and Jørgen Kastholm (1931–2007) were Danish interior and furniture designers. Fabricius trained as a carpenter in Copenhagen (Wikipedia: as a cabinetmaker under Niels Vodder); Kastholm first trained as a smith. They met while studying interior design under Finn Juhl at the School for Interior Design in Copenhagen and in 1961 co-founded a studio, which Wikipedia places in a cellar in Gentofte.

Signature Style

Walter Knoll describes them as dedicated to the optimisation of form, material and ergonomics, following the functional-aesthetic tradition of Scandinavian design and shaped by the Bauhaus; their ultimate goal was timelessness. Wikipedia notes their minimalist pieces were usually in steel and leather.

Notable Works

The FK bucket seat – today the FK Chair and FK Lounge Chair at Walter Knoll – was the first recipient of the German Federal Prize for "Good Form" in 1969. Wikipedia also lists the Grasshopper Chair FK 87 and the Scimitar Chair among their best-known works, produced in the 1960s by Alfred Kill in Fellbach near Stuttgart.

Legacy

The partnership ended in 1968. Kastholm moved to Düsseldorf in 1971 and taught design at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal from 1975 to 1996. Walter Knoll calls the FK one of its most iconic designs to this day.