My training as a goldsmith

My training as a goldsmith began very traditionally as an apprenticeship with a goldsmith in Copenhagen, John Cloos. This choice of profession appears to have been impulsive. My specific motivation was that I had fallen in love with a girl, whose uncle was a goldsmith. In hindsight, however, I have always been fascinated with small objects. Tin soldiers, perfume bottles, bicycle parts and fishing gear. As a child, I loved making little houses for my electric train set, and could spend hours patiently putting things together. In that light, it made sense that I would be making jewellery. 

During my apprenticeship I enjoyed filing, sanding, soldering. The focused concentration in a process where you gradually work towards a result. There was something really cosy about sitting there under the light of the lamp, and the craft of goldsmithing has an old-fashioned nostalgic appeal. Eventually, I began to make things in my own style that were put on display in the window. Cloos’s style was very organic. Mine was based on taut, clean lines and often used repeated forms, for example with inspiration from a fan or a row of terrace houses. Some of my jewellery pieces resemble tiny modular buildings. Gradually, I began to edge my way towards a personal expression and tried to make jewellery with the clear-cut look and element of repetition that I liked and was fascinated with.

After completing my training as a goldsmith, I enrolled at the School of Design in Pforzheim, Germany, for additional training. Pforzheim is the city where most of the European production of jewellery takes place. A real jewellery mecca with a school where students can hone both their technical skills and their artistic expression. I focused on improving my skill at mounting, or setting, diamonds. Not because I thought I could find employment within the field, but out of a fascination with the craft. The school also offered programmes in car design, fashion design, photography and other areas. Suddenly I realized the school was teaching who my grandfather was and what he stood for. It was an eye-opener to me to see that he was so important to my own, young generation of designers, since I had been raised not to make a big deal about the fact that I was Arne Jacobsen’s grandson. Some of my friends were in the car design programme, and I realized then that I wanted to make things that have a utilitarian value. It is not enough that things are beautiful, they should also have a function. That sparked my interest in industrial design, and I later graduated as a furniture and industrial designer from The Danish Design School (now the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Design).

Today I use my training as a goldsmith every single day. When I work on furniture, a radio or other designs, I always begin on a small scale. If a product has an important detail, I demonstrate it on a jewellery-likescale. My first product after I graduated as a designer was the cutlery series Functional Form for Fiskars (then Raadvad). In the design process I first hand-forged the cutlery pieces in brass and silver in order to achieve the right sense of weight in the design: a technique that comes directly from the goldsmith’s craft.For me, the path from goldsmith to industrial designer has proven a natural and highly productive process.