Crimson & Yellow & White

Crimson is the warm accent — the deep vivid red of the most celebrated Danish mid-century modern accent objects: Arne Jacobsen's AJ lamp series (1960, designed for the SAS Royal Hotel, Copenhagen) in deep red; Verner Panton's Panton Chair (1960, the first single-material, single-form injection-molded plastic chair) in its most celebrated vivid red; and the Wegner 'Round Chair' (Chairish #501, 1949, considered by many design historians 'the world's most beautiful chair') with its red leather upholstery. Danish modern's use of vivid red as the primary warm accent against white interiors creates the most immediately recognizable Scandinavian domestic interior aesthetic. Yellow is the solar accent — the vivid solar yellow of the Danish mid-century modern secondary warm accent — specifically the yellow of the Panton Chair in its vivid yellow variant, the yellow of Jacobsen's 'Egg Chair' and 'Swan Chair' (designed 1958 for the SAS Royal Hotel) upholstered in vivid yellow wool, and the yellow of the most celebrated Danish ceramic and glass objects (Royal Copenhagen's most vivid glaze colors, Holmegaard glass in its most vivid yellow). White is the Danish interior — the pure clean white of the Scandinavian 'bright home' (lysthjem) tradition — the white-painted walls, white-lacquered furniture, white concrete ceilings, and white linen textiles of the canonical Danish modern interior. The Danish preference for white as the dominant interior surface is driven by the practical need to maximize the effect of limited natural light (Copenhagen has approximately 1,800 hours of annual sunshine — less than half of Madrid's 2,769 hours) and the aesthetic preference for the 'honest material' approach of functionalist Danish design.