The Pawson Furniture Collection is not just a collection but a testament to the enduring partnership between Dinesen and John Pawson, which has spanned an impressive three decades. The 2024 furniture collection by John Pawson draws inspiration from his 1992 sketches.
In 2024, Dinesen and Pawson rediscovered and redesigned the original furniture collection for Pawson House in 1992—the result is a new John Pawson Furniture Collection, which encapsulates and shapes our ongoing collaboration.
The collection consists of the following: a Dining Table, Bench, Stool, Sofa, Lounge Chair, Daybed, and a Coffee Table.
The chapter on John Pawson's furniture collection for Dinesen began over 30 years ago with three key pieces of furniture: a dining table, a bench and a stool. This dining table series became a symbol of the collaboration between Dinesen and Pawson. The furniture was inspired by the 450 mm wide and 15-metre-long Dinesen Douglas floor planks installed at Pawson's own home in London. Pawson saw the floor as a crucial architectural element, giving the space a sense of direction. For the first time, Pawson lifted the planks from their intended form and transformed them into furniture.
"It was interesting to see how you could transform Douglas fir into furniture where you can still see the beautiful grain and the width of the planks. To somehow use it in a way that took it as its simplest form, the planks."
The new Pawson Collection is based on the span of a Dinesen Douglas plank and includes a Dining Series and a Lounge Series.
The Dining Series includes a dining table, a bench and a stool. The design has been updated with a shadow gap detail made in Dinesen Oak. The tabletop and legs are made from one Douglas plank cut into two pieces and laid side by side. While the shadow gap between each pair of boards was left open in Pawson’s original design, this new iteration quietly expresses the gap using a different variety of timber — combining Douglas fir planks with a slender insert of Dinesen Oak. Stools and benches are made from a single Douglas fir plank with a solid central spine.
The Lounge Series is a new addition to the original Dining series. It is made of solid Douglas and consists of a lounge chair, a sofa, a coffee table and a daybed. Skilled local cabinetmakers built the wooden frame in Denmark, and it is upholstered with textiles from the Danish textile company Kvadrat.
The sofa and lounge chair express the planks on the side elevation, while the cushions continue the theme of assembled and layered elements. The daybed and coffee table are considered lower versions of the dining table.
Each piece of furniture reflects the spirit of the Danish word 'umage', of dialogue between designer, material, and maker, who leave their mark on an object, making decisions that form and elevate it along the way. The pieces also communicate the joint journey that Dinesen and Pawson embarked on—an exploration of wood as a building block, aesthetic, philosophy, and way of living. The collection describes the spirit that Dinesen brings to Pawson's projects.
“When I look at this new furniture collection for Dinesen, I see the essence of the thinking that has shaped my work since the beginning. Everything about these pieces is pared back to the logic and poetry of the wood. The dimensions of the timber determine the proportions of the forms, and then it’s all about the inherent sensory character of the material.”
The Pawson Furniture Collection is crafted to order by local Danish craftsmen using Dinesen Douglas Classic with a shade detail in Dinesen Oak. The stool and the bench are the only pieces without this detail. The pieces are finished with Dinesen Light Oil and upholstered with Kvadrat Maple 0212 by Åsa Pärson. Customers can choose the desired textile from the Kvadrat Maple series.
Visit Kvadrat.com to see the entire Maple series.
Dining Table:
L 288cm x W 90cm x H 72cm
Bench:
L 132cm x W 42cm x H 42cm
Stool:
L 42cm x W 42cm x H 42cm
Sofa:
L 196cm x W 80cm x H 62cm
Lounge Chair:
L 86cm x W 80cm x H 62cm
Daybed:
L 220cm x W 80cm x H 38cm
Coffee Table:
L 120cm x W 90cm x H 22cm
Inquiries about the Pawson Furniture Collection can be received at info@dinesen.com