Bookcase Unit by Ib Kofod Larsen for G-Plan

Furniture designer Ib Kofod-Larsen was born Denmark in 1921 and studied at the Danish Royal Academy in Copenhagen. In 1948, he won the Holmegaard glass competition as well as an annual award from the Danish Cabinetmakers Guild. The latter drew the attention of Danish furniture manufacturer Faarup Møbelfabrik, and Kofod-Larsen went on to create some of his most beautiful works for the company, including his rosewood Model 66 sideboard, during the 1950s. He also designed furniture for several other leading midcentury manufacturers, both at home and abroad, including High Wycombe, Christensen & Larsen, Carlo Gahrn, Bovenkamp, Petersens, and Fredericia Furniture.

Kofod-Larsen frequently worked with gorgeous woods, such as teak and rosewood, as well rich leathers. Clean, sculptural lines characterize much of his work. Notable designs include the U-56 or Elizabeth Chair (1956), composed of a light teak frame and upholstered leather that was purported to have been named for England’s Queen Elizabeth II after she purchased a pair during a visit to Denmark in 1958; as well as the airy and modern Penguin chair (1953). The latter (sometimes referred to as the Shell) features a curved back that embraces the sitter and was originally produced by Petersens in Denmark. It went on to also find great success with the Selig company, which imported and sold thousands of copies in various iterations (settees, dining chairs, and more in various woods and upholsteries) in the U.S. market starting in the 1950s. Kofod-Larsen’s striking teak and leather-upholstered Sälen (or Seal) easy chairs for OPE (also 1950s) have become increasingly popular on the vintage market in recent years. 

Kofod-Larsen passed away in 2003. Today, the designer’s pieces have become more frequently collected, in large part due to Kofod-Larsen’s talent for honoring the innate qualities of his chosen materials.

British furniture manufacturing company G-Plan was launched in 1953, but its roots go back much further. In 1898, Ebenezer Gomme (1858–1931) set up a fine woodworking atelier, E. Gomme Ltd., in High Wycombe, England, a major center of British furniture manufacturing. By the early 1900s, E. Gomme had transitioned into a larger factory facility, and in 1911, his sons took the helm. The company was revered for its range of high-quality sideboards, tables, and other cabinet goods and for pioneering the concept of dining room sets, designed and made to match.

E. Gomme continued to flourish until the 1940s. During World War II, Britain experienced a timber shortage and the British government was forced to enact strict controls on “unnecessary” industries like furniture production. This led to a program called the Utility Scheme, which was intended to cultivate a market for more austere and utilitarian solutions to home goods. Among the program’s efforts, the landmark 1946 Britain Can Make It exhibition at the V&A Museum made great strides in swaying the British public toward more modernist tastes. And among the exhibition’s visitors was Ebenezer Gomme’s grandson, Donald (1916-2005), who was greatly inspired by what he saw there. With the success of the next exhibition in this program, The Festival of Britain—which presented work by modern designers like Robin and Lucienne Day at London’s South Bank in 1951—Donald Gomme became certain that a radical, more minimalist aesthetic was about the sweep the furniture design industry. Thus began G-Plan, an offshoot of the traditional furniture company E. Gomme Ltd.

Although most of the British public reverted to traditional tastes after the war, there was a small but growing market for high-quality, modernist furniture, and G-Plan successfully spoke to this younger, more progressive audience. Through clever marketing campaigns, G-Plan set the standard for modernist, mass-market furniture in postwar Britain. G-Plan’s C Range, with an aesthetic that celebrated its machine production, was launched in 1953, and by 1957 it had become enormously popular. Donald Gomme stepped down from G-Plan in 1958, confident in the strength of the company that he had built.

By the 1960s, the Scandinavian look was sweeping international design, and British-made furniture was being outsold by Danish imports. To compete, G-Plan brought in Danish designer Ib Kofod-Larsen to create new collections in fine woods, like teak and rosewood. While these Kofod-Larsen pieces have become very collectible today, at the time, they were not well appreciated by the design community—perhaps viewed as lesser variations on the furniture available from Scandinavia. Despite the competition, G-Plan remained one of the most recognized names in furniture manufacturing in the UK through the end of the 1970s. 

In 1987 the Gomme family sold the business to the then directors, who, three years later, sold it to the Christie Tyler Group. In 1996, the Morris Furniture Group acquired the license to make and market G-Plan Cabinet furniture in Glasgow. This operates separately from the upholstery business, G-Plan Upholstery Ltd., which continues to manufacture most of its sofa and armchair products in the UK.