post-war designs. Indeed, Aarhus employs a refined, almost classical aesthetic with spacious halls, long corridors and elegantly curved staircases. As the many photographs in the book show, the interior is striking for its consistent use of wooden slat wall coverings, wall lamps and hexagonal pendant lights. Wood is the dominant element here, a theme continued by the stylish furniture, all of which was designed specifically for the building. In April 1940, the Nazis invaded


Denmark. Jacobsen went underground and, though he sought to downplay his Jewish


heritage, he was eventually forced to f lee the country in 1943, escaping to Sweden in a rowing boat in a daring 15km journey across the Øresund Strait. Tankfully, he was accompanied by the elite rower Herbert Marcus, along with Poul Henningsen and his future second wife Jonna Møller. While in Stockholm he engaged his longstanding interest in botany, and Dickson and Lund- Larsen discovered many of his plant studies and watercolours in the Danish Art Library archives. Botany, they write, gave Jacobsen a freedom to explore new possibilities and ‘a foundation of an


expression that would later emerge in the form of design and buildings’. But it was in the large collection of textile patterns that he designed with his wife Jonna for the Swedish department store Nordiska Kompaniet that his infatuation with the natural world is most clearly seen. Jonna had trained as a textile printer and, working together, the couple created patterns featuring motifs derived from wildflowers. Vegetation (1944) is a lush tangle of green plant forms set against a white background, while the charming Anemone (1944) features an array of the titular flowers in white, yellow and blue. Such


PHOTO: © DORTE KROGH


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