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Danish Furniture Rise Andf Fall
Danish Furniture Rise Andf Fall
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Review
In the 1950s,
drillard recognizedFrench
the powerfulsociologists
impact of languagelike Roland Barthes and Jean Bau
and narrative
on the production and promotion of fashion and other consumption
goods. "The object is nothing," declared Baudrillard. Roland Barthes
proclaimed, "Without discourse there is no total Fashion, no essential
Fashion.... [T]rue reason would in fact have us proceed from the insti
tuting discourse to the reality which it constitutes."1 These statements
are the starting point of my article, which is a critical examination of
the construction of Danish Modern as an international brand. I argue
that the international success of Danish Modern was due not to the es
sential beauty of the furniture, but to the concerted efforts of a social
network to assign certain meanings to concepts like "Danish Modern"
PER H. HANSEN is professor at the Centre for Business History, Copenhagen Business
School.
This article is based in part on my book, written in Danish: Da danske nwbler blev mod
erne: Historien om dansk mobeldesigns storhedstid [When Danish Furniture Went Modern:
A History of the Rise and Decline of Danish Furniture Design] (Copenhagen, 2006).
Mean Baudrillard, "The Ideological Genesis of Needs," in The Consumer Society Reader,
Douglas B. Holt and Juliet B. Schor, eds., The Consumer Society Reader (New York, 2000),
58-80, esp. 57, 70-71; Baudrillard, The Consumer Society; and Roland Barthes, The Fash
ion System (Berkeley, 1983; French ed., 1967), xi.
and "Danish Design." In other words, there was no Danish Modern until
it was constructed by a narrative.2
The insights that this approach yields are very different from the per
spective offered by the essentialist studies that have dominated the his
toriography of Danish Design. The history of Danish modern furniture
design has been told many times, but in spite of the economic impor
tance of the furniture industry to Denmark, few historians have consid
ered the causes of the sector's success.3 Because their focus has been on
design, they have concentrated on the aesthetics of the furniture and
the talents of individual designers to explain the popularity of Danish
Design.4 This has left the impression that Danish modern furniture was
able to "sell itself," in a sense, because it possessed the essential charac
teristics of beauty, simplicity, and functionality.
Kevin Davies has been an important exception to this traditional
outlook. He has argued that the version of the story that portrays the
architect Kaare Klint as the founding father of Danish Design is more
about marketing than about facts, a position with which I sympathize.5
In this article, I will argue that Danish modern furniture succeeded, first
in Denmark and then in the United States, for two main reasons.6 First,
21 am not arguing that the furniture, the producers, and the designers did not exist, but,
rather, that the categories and the meanings attached to them were constructed by the narrative.
3 The exceptions are Carl Erik Andresen, Dansk Mobelindustri, 1870-1950 (Arhus,
1996), whose analysis stops in 1950, exactly at the time of the international breakthrough of
Danish Design. Hans Chr. Johansen, Industriens vsekst og vilkar, 1870-1973 (Odense,
1988), on the other hand, argues that Danish furniture's success was driven by the demand
that grew out of increasing incomes and the opening of export markets (p. 299). Internation
ally, Michael Porter has pointed to design as a basis for Denmark's comparative advantage in
the production of household products and furnishings. Porter attributes the country's edge to
"a pool of university-trained designers" and "several professorships in furniture design." See
Michael Porter, The Competitive Advantage of Nations (London, 1990), 78,133.
4 The literature is abundant and mostly written by people who were part of the social net
work that I describe. See, for example, Arne Karlsen, Dansk Mobelkunst i det 20: arhundrede:
Bind 1-2 (Copenhagen, 1990); Esbjorn Hiort, Arkitekten Finn Juhl: Mobelkunst, Arkitektur,
Brugskunst (Copenhagen, 1990); Grete Jalk, ed., Dansk Mobelkunst gennem 40 ar: Koben
havns Snedkerlaugs Mobeludstillinger, 1927-1966, vols. 1-4 (Copenhagen, 1987); Mirjam
Gelfer-Jorgensen, Dansk Kunsthandvaerkfra 1850 til vor tid (Copenhagen, 1982); and Rig
mor Andersen, Kaare Klints Mobler (Copenhagen, 1979).
5 Kevin Davies, "Markets, Marketing and Design: The Danish Furniture Industry, c.
1947-65," Scandinavian Journal of Design History 9 (1999): 56-73. See also Kevin Davies,
"Scandinavian Furniture in Britain: Finmar and the U.K. Market, 1949-1952," Journal of
Design History 10 (2000): 39-52; and "Twentieth Century Danish Furniture Design and the
English Vernacular Tradition," Scandinavian Journal of Design History 7 (1997): 41-57;
Lesley Jackson, "A Positive Influence: The Impact of Scandinavian Design in Britain during
the 1950s," Scandinavian Journal of Design History 4 (1994): 41-60. Furthermore, Mette
Dalby, "Smag, forbrug og livsstil: optikker pa dansk mobeldesign, 1940-60" (M.A. thesis, In
stitut for Kunsthistorie, Arhus Universitet, 2001) shows the value of a branding approach to
Danish modern furniture.
6 Obviously the advent of Danish modern furniture came about for a variety of reasons.
Harvey Molotch employs the concept of "latch up" to describe the many conditions that must
the creation of certain narratives framed the way consumers made sense
of this furniture; and, second, the development of a social network of in
dividuals and organizations promoted and legitimized these narratives.7
In the construction of Danish Modern as a concept, certain mean
ings were assigned to it that caused groups of consumers to prefer fur
niture that was designed and produced in Denmark over other types.
The concept of Danish Modern thus strongly resembles a brand, de
fined as a "concocted creation that is devised wholly to help sell and ...
has no life of itself." Brands are vehicles for differentiating between
products that are otherwise much alike; they offer consistency, and
they "help us define who we are ... and help us tell the world about our
selves." Put another way, brands assign certain meanings to products,
groups of products, and even to universities, nations, and monarchies.8
Narratives are an important part of assigning meaning to brands.9 That
Danish Modern has the characteristics of a brand was also evidenced by
the Federal Trade Commission's 1968 ruling that terms like "Danish"
and "Danish Modern" must be used only to describe furniture pro
duced in Denmark, while the phrase "Danish designed" could be ap
plied only to furniture designed in Denmark. In the same ruling, the
FTC noted that "Danish Modern" carries certain meanings, and it com
mented that consumers might prefer goods that are identified with a
foreign culture.10
Frames are conceptual structures that evoke certain associations in
the mind, in this case the meanings assigned to Danish Modern. The
production of frames and the representation of their contents can be
be fulfilled in order for a new design to appear. See Harvey Molotch, Where Stuff Comes
From (New York, 2003).
7 For an introduction to narrative and discursive analytical strategies, see Barbara Czar
niawska, Narratives in Social Science Research (Thousand Oaks, Calif., 2004); David M.
Boje, Narrative Methods for Organizational and Communication Research (Thousand
Oaks, Calif., 2001); and Niels Akerstrom Andersen, Discursive Analytical Strategies: Under
standing Foucault, Koselleck, Laclau and Luhman (Bristol, 2003).
8 Quotations are from Wally Olins, "How Brands are Taking over the Corporation," in The
Expressive Organization: Linking Identity, Reputation, and the Corporate Brand, eds. Maj
ken Schultz, Mary Jo Hatch, and Mogens Holten Larsen (Oxford, 2000). See also James B.
Twitchell, Branded Nation: The Marketing ofMegachurch, College Inc., and Museumworld
(New York, 2004). Was Danish Modern a brand? I will argue that it makes sense to use the
concept in a broader perspective when assigning specific meanings to things in order to cre
ate or add value, even to a monarchy. See John M. T. Balmer, Stephen A. Greyser, and Mats
Urde, "Monarchies as Corporate Brands," Harvard Business School Working Paper no. 05
002 (Aug. 2004).
9 On brands and narratives, see Douglas B. Holt, How Brands Become Icons: The Prin
ciples of Cultural Branding (Cambridge, Mass., 2004).
10 Federal Trade Commission, "Advisory Opinion Digest No. 301," Federal Trade Com
mission Advisory Opinion Digest, vol. 1-313 (1 June 1962-31 Dec. 1968): 234; and Ray O.
Werner et al., "Legal Developments in Marketing," Journal of Marketing 33 (2) 1969: 70-81.
11 For an influential account of how language and metaphors shape the way we think, see
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago, 1980).
12 Czarniawska, in Narratives in Social Science, argues convincingly that narratives can
not be controlled exclusively by the actors. However, in this case, the network was remark
ably successful in doing so for a long period of time.
13 Regarding social networks, see Mark Granovetter, "Economic Action and Social Struc
ture: The Problem of Embeddedness," American Journal of Sociology 91, no. 3 (1985): 418
510. See also Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network
Theory (New York, 2005).
14 Grant McCracken, "Culture and Consumption: A Theoretical Account of the Structure
and Movement of the Cultural Meaning of Consumer Goods," Journal of Consumer Re
search 13, no. 1 (1986): 76. The concept of a "fashion system" was originally conceived by
French semiologist Roland Barthes in 1967. See Roland Barthes, The Fashion System (New
York, 1983).
15 McCracken, Culture and Consumption, 77-78; and Olins, "How Brands are Taking
over the Corporation." This movement of meaning from designers and producers to con
sumers is not a one-way street, however. Regina Lee Blaszczyk, in Imagining Consumers:
Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning (Baltimore, 2000), has argued that pro
ducers pay serious attention to consumers' preferences, which are conveyed through "fashion
intermediaries," and therefore that designs are also influenced by a "bottom-up" process
whereby meanings are transmitted by consumers to designers and producers.
16 There is a substantial literature on consumption, taste, and lifestyle. For different per
spectives, see, for instance, Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York,
1994; 1st ed. 1899); Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste
(London, 1984); and Judy Attfield, Wild Things: The Material Culture of Everyday Life (Ox
ford, 2000). See also Tim Dant, Material Culture in the Social World: Values, Activities, Life
styles (Buckingham, 1999); and Grant McCracken, Culture and Consumption. Concerning
furniture and interior decoration, see Grant McCracken, Culture and Consumption II: Mar
kets, Meaning and Brand Management (Bloomington, 2005), 17~47; and, albeit for another
period, Leora Auslander, Taste and Power: Furnishing Modern France (Berkeley, 1996). See
also Joy Parr, "Household Choices as Politics and Pleasure," International Labor and Working
Class History 55 (April 1999): 112-28; Ruth Madigan and Moira Munro, "'House Beautiful':
Style and Consumption in the Home," Sociology 30, no. 1 (1996): 41-58; and Ian Woodward,
"Divergent Narratives in the Imagining of the Home amongst Middle-Class Consumers: Aes
thetics, Comfort and the Symbolic Boundaries of Self and Home," Journal of Sociology 39,
no. 4 (2003): 391-412, who, from different perspectives and empirical bases, argue that con
sumers were torn between the desire for decoration and the desire for comfort. For a discus
sion of Pierre Bourdieu's theory of distinction in relation to U.S. consumption, see Douglass
B. Holt, "Does Cultural Capital Structure American Consumption?" in The Consumer Society
Reader, eds. Schor and Holt. For a discussion of taste in relation to furniture, see Stephen
Bayley, Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things (New York, 1992).
17 This representation of Klint can be found in many places. For a more detailed discus
sion, see Hansen, Da danske mobler blev moderne: Historien om dansk mebeldesigns
storhedstid (Copenhagen, 2006). For an example in English, see Steen Eiler Rasmussen,
"Furniture: Tools for Living," Danish Foreign Office Journal 8 (1953): 5-7, and the some
what more critical treatment by Davies in "Twentieth Century Danish."
himself, wrote that Klint had invented the scientific approach to furni
ture design: "If one looks at Danish furniture design today it is clear
that people who are occupied with furniture design have continued this
method. Others have broken away and are giving the furniture freer
forms than Klint did. However, in their best designs one recognizes an
allegiance to Klint's principles."21
This opinion was often repeated. As was the case in the 1930s, the
struggle to distinguish acceptable from unacceptable furniture design
was a semantic one. The Klint narrative was systematically promoted in
Denmark and abroad by the network, particularly by Klint's former stu
dents and colleagues, including Borge Mogensen, Arne Karlsen, Rigmor
Andersen, Kay Fisker, and Steen Ejler Rasmussen. In the July 1959
issue of the American magazine House Beautiful, Elizabeth Gordon
wrote that Scandinavian architects and designers, who were themselves
craftsmen, kept in contact with producers to create a "very democratic
design."22 Gordon asserted that "Klint... was one of the guiding lights
in modern design." She went on to say that "he led the revolt against
the imitation of past forms; he preached that honest materials honestly
used solve human needs with directness and beauty."23 This was typical
of many statements that appeared in Danish and international publica
tions, beginning in the 1940s and continuing up to the present. For ex
ample, in 1950 the New York Times informed its readers that Klint was
responsible for the Danish style, in which the use "of detailed, careful
cabinetmaking ... all adds to this impression of furniture that is mod
ern but solidly based on tradition." The reporter continued by stating
that "as early as 1924 Klint started an investigation of the dimension of
things_"24
By i960, there were already clear signs that Klint's influence on
Danish modern furniture had not been nearly as strong as his champi
ons were suggesting. Nevertheless, a traveling exhibit, called "The Arts
of Denmark," which toured the United States from i960 to 1961, still
featured Klint as a protagonist of Danish Modern: "The basic work for
the design of light, modern types of furniture that fit naturally into a
modern, democratic milieu was carried out in the thirties by architects
in cooperation with cabinetmakers. A great influence on the develop
ment in this period [was] due to the architect Kaare Klint."25
21 Peter Hvidt, "Snedker og arkitekt," Berlingske Tidende, 17 Feb. 1959. (My translation.)
22 Elizabeth Gordon, "The Beauty that Comes with Common Sense," House Beautiful,
July 1959: 55-122.
23 Marion Gough, "Hans J. Wegner?Poet of Practicality," House Beautiful, July 1959:
65-114.
24 Betty Pepis, "For the Home: Danish Craft Designs Stem from the Traditional," New
York Times: 15 July 1950.
25 Lassen, The Arts of Denmark.
Elizabeth Gordon, the editor of the magazine House Beautiful, was a long-time supporter of
Danish Modern and Scandinavian Design. The Jury 1959 issue, which was devoted to Danish
modern furniture, presented the main themes of the narrative to its readership. The chair
man of the Society of Arts and Crafts noted the issue's extensive coverage of Denmark and of
Danish chairs. (Image courtesy of House Beautiful magazine/Hearst Communications, Inc.)
become a forum for Danish modern furniture and managed them until
1966.26
Among the important promoters of the cabinetmakers' narrative
were the master cabinetmakers A. J. Iversen, Jacob Kjaer, and Povl
Christiansen. Iversen participated in every exhibition from 1927 to 1966,
and he never missed an opportunity to stress the importance of cooper
ation between architects and cabinetmakers and to remind listeners of
the cabinetmakers' central role in initiating the collaboration. In a lec
ture delivered in the early 1930s, he made this comment: "A few years
ago a group of Copenhagen architects and cabinetmakers started to co
operate at the Cabinetmakers' Guild Exhibitions-Through this coop
eration we have achieved results that have been noticed abroad and
which have had the greatest importance for Danish furniture design."27
The cabinetmakers' narrative version, which started early on, not
only emphasized their cooperative arrangement with the architects, but
also highlighted their excellent craftsmanship and use of wood. The
warm, natural qualities that wood evoked were contrasted with the steel
favored by the Bauhaus school, which the cabinetmakers described as
cold and unnatural.
In the catalog for the 1958 exhibition, Povl Christiansen, chairman
of the guild, explained why its logo pictured a Renaissance cabinet
maker: "He has taught us the craft we practice today, taught us respect
for good and honest craftsmanship. More than four hundred years ago
he established the Guild that is the precondition for our exhibitions. He
has established the craft-based tradition that forms the basis of our
work today."28 This tradition, he wrote, had also become the model for the
furniture industry, which increasingly employed "the outstanding furni
ture architects who were trained and earned their experience through
cooperation with the cabinetmakers at the annual exhibitions."29
The cabinetmakers constructed a strong individual and collective
identity for themselves and projected a public image to support it.30
The image was strengthened by the subnarrative, which was embraced
by groups operating outside the cabinetmakers' circles. The Danish state,
for example, began to provide some funding for the exhibitions in the
1930s, and after the war it extended marketing support as well. In 1951
the Danish Foreign Office Journal asserted that "the basis of the suc
cess of Danish furniture-making, besides fine craftsmanship, is the
close contact between cabinetmaker and designer."31
In i960, Viggo Steen Moller, another important member of the net
work, wrote in the same journal that the cooperative arrangement be
tween cabinetmakers and architects had been instrumental in estab
lishing the high quality of both the design and the execution of Danish
furniture.32 High-quality craftsmanship and design were critical fea
tures of Danish Modern branding, and spokesmen for the network
stressed them continually after the late 1930s.
By the end of that decade, Danish furniture was attracting interna
tional attention. Even though Denmark did not exhibit much furniture
at the World's Fair in New York in 1939, representatives were there to
circulate the story of Danish Modern. The Danish exhibition catalog,
prepared by the Danish Society of Arts and Crafts, and the permanent
sales exhibition Den Permanente emphasized both the influence of
Klint and the "genuine, professional workmanship" of "several notable
handicraftsmen."33 The catalog described Danish industrial art as pos
sessing "a homely tone in nature and character, capricious effects hav
ing been unknown to us. Our best works are characterized by the will
to produce genuine, technical workmanship, a sound critical attitude to
untimely modernism, but also a natural desire to take up the problems
for renewed investigation and solution in accordance with the exigen
cies of the times."34 This passage combines the two themes?the role of
Klint and the contribution of skilled cabinetmakers?and demonstrates
that the narrative was in place well before Danish Design made its inter
national breakthrough around 1950.
The Central Narrative Encounters Problems. Klint first showed
his work in 1930 at the Cabinetmakers' Guild Furniture Exhibitions,
which connected the two main themes. The narrative's central tenet was
that cooperation between the architects and the cabinetmakers was the
force behind the rise of Danish modern furniture design. The scientific
functionalism espoused by Klint included a respect for tradition that en
abled it to incorporate the cabinetmakers' craftsmanship and use of tra
ditional materials. The central theme of the story was the unsurpassed
31 "Danish Arts and Crafts. A Permanent Sales Exhibition," Danish Foreign Office Jour
nal no. 3 (1951): 24-26.
32 Viggo Sten Moller, "Fashions in Furniture," Danish Foreign Office Journal (i960, spe
cial U.S. issue): 28-30.
33 Modern Danish Industrial Art: New York, 1939 (Copenhagen, 1939), 3-4.
34 Ibid., 5.
35 See McCracken, Culture and Consumption, 76-77; and Hansen, Da danske mobler.
As Danish Modern gained in popularity and status, it became more difficult for Danish pro
ducers and U.S. importers to protect the brand from knockoffs. The Society for Arts and
Crafts spent a considerable portion of its resources combating this problem. The Tell City
Chair Company capitalized on the reputation of the Danish Modern brand when introducing
its own line, pointing out that its furniture was priced "much lower than the imports." (Photo
graph reproduced with permission of Tell City Chair Company, Tell City, Ind. Tell City ? is a
registered trademark of Tell City Chair Company. All Rights Reserved.)
garde, most of the furniture that made Danish Modern world famous
was industrially produced rather than handcrafted.
Fifth, the furniture from the Klint School did not make Danish De
sign internationally successful. By the second half of the 1930s, a new
generation of young designers had emerged, and they adopted a freer,
more expressive approach to functionalist furniture. However, like Klint,
they worked primarily in wood, and they depended on master cabinet
makers for high-quality craftsmanship. Among the best-known practi
tioners of this new, freer trend were Hans Wegner and Finn Juhl, who
were pillars of the annual Cabinetmakers' Guild Furniture Exhibitions
for many years. Wegner and Juhl became famous twentieth-century
design icons, but neither was trained by Klint, and both were among
the first to cooperate with industrial furniture manufacturers. In 1949,
The Danish Society of Arts and Crafts (est. 1907), the Cabinetmak
ers' Guild Furniture Exhibitions (established in 1927), and Den Perma
nente (established in 1931) were instrumental in creating the network's
institutional and organizational framework. These organizations were
not simply trade bodies. They were the social and cultural arenas for
the network of architects, producers, and intellectuals who made up the
functionalist movement.
Beginning in the early 1930s, these organizations sponsored furniture
exhibitions and competitions. In the 1940s and 1950s, they extended their
activities to publishing, journalism, radio, and film. From 1930 to the late
1960s, the Danish Society of Arts and Crafts, which had spearheaded the
promotion of Danish Design, generated tremendous publicity for Danish
furniture, both at home and abroad. The Society published both a maga
zine and books, organized lectures and teaching materials, and supported
most of the exhibitions of Danish modern furniture and other design
products that were held in Denmark, Scandinavia, Western Europe, and
North America. Thus, it is puzzling that the Society has not received more
attention in historical accounts of Danish Modern.
38 Finn Juhl, "Danish Furniture Design," Architects' Year Book (1949): 134-40.
39 See Bard Henriksen, "Arne Jacobsen and His Laminated Chairs," Scandinavian Jour
nal of Design History 7 (1997): 7-28; Carsten Thau and Kjeld Vindum, Arne Jacobsen
(Copenhagen, 2001); Chr. Harlang, ed., Poul Kjaerholm (Copenhagen, 1999); and Hansen,
Da danske mobler.
ing the Great Depression and the Second World War.46 Import restric
tions cut into foreign competition during this formative period of coop
eration between architects and cabinetmakers.
The social agenda of the times made it easier for the network to
spread the message of modernism. Its campaign to promote a better
life through better homes was paternalistic, normative, and strongly in
fluenced by social engineering and the rise of the Danish welfare state.
The propaganda was designed to shape consumers' preferences and
choices. Advertising was one strategy, but more important was the
coverage by magazines like the popular Bygge og Bo. Tidsskrift for
moderne hjem [Building and Living: The Magazine for Modern Homes],
first published in 1934, and the trade magazine Nyt Tidsskrift for Kun
stindustri [The New Magazine for Industrial Arts], which was launched
in 1928.47 In addition, numerous "how-to" books on interior decoration
appeared from the mid-i920s to the 1960s, with titles like Sadan skal
du bo (How to Furnish Your Home), Bo Bedre (Live Better), and Bo
Rigtigt (Live Correctly).48
In the late 1930s, a few department stores introduced modern Dan
ish furniture, and during the 1940s a few manufacturers converted their
product lines. Exhibitions and lectures organized by the Danish Society
of Arts and Crafts were held all over the country, and numerous stories
appeared, first in magazines, newspapers, and the radio and, then, begin
ning in the 1950s, in film and on television. The network's influence in
creased, and as consumers' incomes grew along with their mobility, more
homes were constructed, stimulating a demand for modern furniture. By
the end of the 1940s, modern Danish furniture was available from retail
ers countrywide, particularly after the Danish cooperative retailer FDB
introduced a comprehensive line of such furniture at affordable prices.49
Advertising became more widespread, and lifestyle magazines fre
quently reported on new designs and featured examples for young couples
to emulate in furnishing their apartments and houses. The emphasis on
46 Cf. Joseph Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development: An Inquiry into Prof
its, Capital, Credit, Interest, and the Business Cycle (Cambridge, Mass., 1934, English ed.),
66. This case does not fit well with Blaszczyk's claim, in Imagining Consumers, that produc
ers relied on fashion intermediaries to learn about consumers' preferences.
47 Interestingly, in 1948, Nyt Tidsskrift for Kunstindustri [New Magazine for Industrial
Arts] changed its title to Dansk Kunsth&ndvaerk [Danish Arts and Crafts]. The change re
flected the early Danish functionalists' initial admiration of the machine age, which subse
quently shifted to a preference for arts and crafts.
48Gudrun Egebjerg, Sadan skal du bo (Copenhagen, 1936); Bo Bedre (Copenhagen,
!937); and Esbjorn Hiort, Bo rigtigt (Copenhagen, 1947). See also Jacob Kja?r, Mobelbogen
(Copenhagen, 1945).
49 The background of FDB-Mobler is discussed in more detail in Hansen, Da danske
mobler, and in Jorgen Guldberg, "Tradition, modernitet og usamtidighed: Om Borge
Mogensens FDB-mobler og det modernes hjemliggorelse" (Working paper, University of
Southern Denmark, Center for Cultural Studies, 1998).
In March 1945, even before the war ended, the Danish Society for
Arts and Crafts began to discuss how to create an export market. They
soon concentrated on the United States, drawn by its growing con
sumer affluence, its established market for modern furniture, and its
interest in Scandinavian arts and crafts.52 Thus, when Danish furniture
was introduced to North America, consumers were already familiar
with modernism, which had been promoted by an American network of
designers and producers.53 Finally, the narrative of Danish modern fur
niture as a unique, handcrafted product appealed to cultured, urban
consumers who wished to demonstrate their good taste and individu
ality through ownership of "authentic" artisan objects rather than mass
produced goods.54
50 Hansen, Da danske mobler; and Birgit Kaiser, Den ideologiske funktionalisme (Copen
hagen, 1992).
51 Kaiser, Den ideologiske funktionalisme and interview on 25 Feb. 2004 with cabinet
maker Holger Nissen, who took over Worts's cabinetmaker's workshop in 1956.
52 Hansen, Da danske nwbler; Davies, Scandinavian Furniture in Britain; and Davies, Mar
kets, Marketing and Design. Davies concentrates on the U.K. market. Because of the United
Kingdom's import restrictions, higher taxes, and lower income levels, exports to the United
Kingdom were primarily of cheaper furniture.
53 See Pulos, The American Design Adventure; G. H. Marcus, Design in the Fifties: When
Everyone Went Modern (New York, 1998); and Allen Tate and C. Ray Smith, Interior Design
in the 20th Century (New York, 1986), 390-91, 433-34.
54 Holt, Does Cultural Capital? 2.2.2, 238-41; Edward O. Laumann and James S. House,
"Living Room Styles and Social Attributes: The Patterning of Material Artifacts in a Modern
Breaking into the U.S. Market. Most Danish producers had lit
tle if any knowledge of exports, and at the firm level they lacked the
necessary organizational and institutional background to take advan
tage of the perceived opportunities in the United States. However, their
attempts to build an export market were assisted by several organiza
tions: the Danish Society of Arts and Crafts; Den Permanente in coopera
tion with the export offices of the Confederation of Danish Industries;
the Danish Federation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises; and the
Danish Foreign Ministry. The Society for Arts and Crafts launched a
series of exhibitions as a strategy to pave the way for exports.55
In the late 1940s, while planning for a U.S. exhibition, the Society
contacted Edgar Kaufmann at the Museum of Modern Art. Kaufmann
had visited Scandinavia in 1948, and he became a central figure in the
promotion of Danish and Scandinavian design in the United States. In
1950, he initiated the Good Design show in Chicago in cooperation with
Merchandise Mart, a trade-show producer. Although Kaufmann was criti
cal of the Klint school, in 1948 he wrote an article for the influential trade
magazine Interiors, which introduced Finn Juhl and Danish modern fur
niture to an American audience.56 As a result of this coverage, Juhl be
came the single most important Danish designer in the United States. In
1951 he was commissioned to decorate and furnish the Trusteeship Coun
cil Chamber at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Subse
quently Baker Furniture in Michigan began to manufacture his designs. 57
Hans Wegner also became popular in the United States. In February
1950, Interiors carried photographs of chairs by Wegner, Juhl, Borge
Mogensen, and others whose work had been shown at the Cabinetmakers'
Guild Exhibition in October 1949. The article, most likely drafted by Viggo
Sten Moller, director of the Society of Arts and Crafts, which submitted
the pictures, was a timely promotion of Danish Modern. It emphasized
the close cooperation between Danish architects and cabinetmakers,
contrasting it with the American furniture industry's reliance on stylists,
unskilled workers, and efficiency experts. Moller pointed out that Danish
chairs were handcrafted and custom made, stressed the cabinetmakers'
Urban Community," Sociology and Social Research no. 3 (1970): 321-42; and Parr, House
hold Choices, on the negative correlation between modern furniture and a traditional way of
life and low incomes. See also the American designer Edward Wormley's explanation for
Danish Modern's appeal to American consumers: Edward Wormley, "Hans J. Wegner i
USA," Dansk Kunsthandvaerk (1959): 45-46; and Abbey Johnson, "Homemaker Finds Fur
niture Buying Threat to Her Ego," Chicago Daily Tribune, 14 Feb. i960.
55 Hansen, Da danske mobler.
56 Edgar Kaufmann, "Finn Juhl of Copenhagen," Interiors (Nov. 1948): 96-99. See also
Olga Gueft, "Finn Juhl: About the Quiet Life of a Danish Architect," Interiors (Sept. 1950):
82-91.
57 "Juhl Furniture: Baker's Grand Rapids Galleries," Interiors (Nov. 1951): 84-93.
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diers stationed at U.S. bases in Germany and the United Kingdom dur
ing the 1950s and 1960s. Some of these soldiers, and many American
tourists as well, visited Copenhagen and purchased the furniture from
cabinetmakers' workshops, from Den Permanente and other Danish re
tailers, and from department stores like Illums Bolighus. Danish retail
ers even catered to soldiers by setting up trailer showrooms outside
U.S. Army bases.61
However, these direct purchases by consumers were not as signifi
cant as the import of Danish furniture by American firms. Georg
Jensen Inc. and George Tanier Inc., in New York, and Svend Wohlert,
in San Francisco, had established personal ties in Denmark and thus
could be considered an extension of the Danish Design network.62 They
had made these connections around 1950, when they instituted regular
imports of high-end Danish furniture. By the mid-1950s, new importers
like John Stuart Inc., Raymor, and Selig, which did not have direct links
with Denmark, had entered the U.S. market. They imported and sold
Danish modern furniture from the best industrial producers, claiming
that it was handcrafted "by skilled artisans whose requirements for
quality and finish [were] unequalled." John Stuart Inc. called the furni
ture "The Danish Craftsmen Series."63
During the 1950s, news of Danish Design was reported in mass
market magazines like Interiors, Arts and Architecture, House Beautiful,
and House and Garden. In 1961, an article in Playboy described the Scan
dinavians as loving "the feel and look and warmth and weight of wood_
And the Scandinavians love the idea of handcraftsmanship; they exploit
the joys of handwork in gently modulated, sculptured wood surfaces, the
turns and joints made poignant by changes in grain markings."64
Design writers like Betty Pepis of the New York Times, Elisabeth Gor
don of House Beautiful, and Olga Gueft of Interiors tirelessly promoted
Danish Modern and campaigned against the international modernism
of Bauhaus.65 In October 1954, a New York Times writer expressed the
view that most pieces of furniture exhibited at the Cabinetmakers'
Guild Exhibition that year were "representative of the close cooperation
between Danish architects and cabinetmakers .... [Simplicity, prac
tical strength and utilization of appropriate materials characterize^]
these designs."66 Any doubts about the degree of skill required to pro
duce the furniture were put to rest by the photographs of Danish work
shops that accompanied the articles.67 However, by the beginning of
the 1950s many of the cabinetmakers had begun to use machine tools to
supplement their handcrafted work.
By the second half of the 1950s, Danish Modern had achieved an
international reputation and had conquered much of the niche market
for imported modern furniture in the United States. The line was per
ceived as trendsetting. Trade and lifestyle magazines reported frequently
on developments in Denmark, adding to the iconic status of the most
well-known pieces. The various meanings that had been assigned to
Scandinavia and Denmark carried over to their furniture. Scandina
vians were identified as having values that were very different from
those of Americans. Denmark was included in this frame, and a rosy
picture of the country was propagated by American publications like
Kate Keating's A Young American Looks at Denmark and Temple
Fielding's travel and shopping guides, which appeared in the 1950s and
1960s. In one passage, Keating wrote, "There is nothing new about
63 The quotation is from The Lunning Collection (catalog, n.d., probably 1957). See also
The Danish Craftsmen Series published by John Stuart Inc. (catalog, n.d.); and The George
Tanier Selection (catalogs: New York, 1956, i960).
64 J. Anderson, "Designs for Living," Playboy, July 1961: 50, 52,108-9, no.
65 A good example is Elizabeth Gordon, "The Threat to the Next America," House Beauti
ful: Apr. 1953: 126-30, 250-51.
66 "For the Home: New Designs Shown in Denmark," New York Times, 2 Oct. 1954. See
also Gough, Hans J. Wegner?Poet, 68, on Hans Wegner's furniture.
67 See, for instance, Edgar Kaufmann Jr., "Hans Wegner: The Heresies of a Quiet Dane,"
Industrial Design, Mar. 1959: 56-59.
68 Kate Keating, A Young American Looks at Denmark (New York, 1963), 28, 36, 50. For
the shopping guides, see, for instance, Temple Fielding, Temple Fielding's Selective Shop
ping Guide to Europe (New York, 1961), and her glowing recommendation of Den Perma
nente and Illums Bolighus for furniture and design.
69 S. Johnsen & Co., Sightseeing Copenhagen and Sealand (brochure) (Copenhagen,
1956).
70 H. S. Commager, "Big Lessons from a Small Nation," New York Times Magazine, 2
Oct. i960.
71 "Famous for Food, Fun and Fairy Tales," New York Times, 23 Feb. 1964.
72 Sarah Tomerlin Lee, "Scandinavia," House Beautiful, Jan. 1968: 73.
73 Edgar Kaufmann Jr., "An American View of the Arts of Denmark and Danish Modern
Design," in Lassen, The Arts of Denmark, 99-106.
74 See Hansen, Da danske nwbler. For traditional accounts of how the exhibition was orga
nized, see Arne Remlov, Design in Scandinavia: An Exhibition of Objects for the Home from
Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden (Oslo, 1954); and Aake Huldt, Design in Scandinavia:
USA-Canada, 1954-1957 (Stockholm, 1958). Leslie Cheeks Jr. wrote about Scandinavian de
sign and American taste in "Do Americans Have Good Taste?" New York Times, 6 June 1954.
75 Betty Pepis, "Glass and Silver give Tone to Show," New York Times, 16 Jan. 1954. For a
systematic account of the press coverage of the exhibition tour, see Huldt, Design in Scandi
navia. See also Remlov, Design in Scandinavia; and Hansen, Da danske mobler.
76 For an analysis of this, see Ingeborg Glambek, Sett utenfra: Det nordiske i arkitektur
og design (Vojens, 1997).
77 Edgar Kaufmann Jr., "Scandinavian Design in the USA," Interiors (May 1954): 108-85.
78 Marion Gough, "How to visit Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden during the Scan
dinavian Design Cavalcade," House Beautiful, July 1959: 46-110.
79 Danish Design, catalog prepared by Magasin du Nord (Copenhagen, i960).
80 Danish Design, catalog prepared by Crome & Goldschmidt Department Store (Copen
hagen i960); and Illums Bolighus: Center for Modern Design, catalog prepared by Illums
Bolighus (Copenhagen, 1961).
81 J. Katzen, "Prestige?The Intangible Asset," Retailing Daily, 28 Apr. 1952.
82 E. Bartels, "Danske mobler til USA," Mobilia (Feb. 1956): 21-28.
83 The examples are numerous, but see, for instance, Elizabeth Gordon, "The New Taste
Trend," House Beautiful, Oct. 1952: 174-75; Elizabeth Gordon, "The Editor's Forecast of the
New Taste Cycle," House Beautiful, Oct. 1952: 182-83, 269-72; M. Roche, "The Growing Love
of Soft, Rounded Flowing Forms," House Beautiful, Oct. 1952:184-87, 248-49; L. van Houten,
"Furniture," Arte & Architecture, Aug. 1954: 25-29; and George Tanier Selection (catalog).
In other words, they were not only buying furniture; they were also ac
quiring symbols of good taste and displaying their ownership of a cer
tain lifestyle.87
A study of metropolitan Detroit revealed a strong connection be
tween the acquisition of "modern" possessions and elite social status.
"Modern ways of thinking" were associated with such purchases,
whereas people who decorated their homes in a more conventional
manner tended to hold traditional points of view.88 A Canadian study
of household choices carried out in the 1950s demonstrated that low
income families did not buy modern furniture.89 Hansen's exports to
North America between 1950 and 1955 went primarily to the areas
around large cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco,
Toronto, and Vancouver, where most dealers were located. There were
hardly any customers in the Midwest or the South.90 In 1965, the poet
Judson Jerome wrote: "My conversion was not to any religion, for few
of the in-group had any, but to that clan aspiring to success, cultivation,
knowledge, reason, collective order, scientific explanations, Danish fur
niture and Bronx diet."91
The New York Times published a quiz to test women's perfume
preferences. The responses revealed that women who liked Danish
Modern were also drawn to New York, Paris suits, and dry martinis. If
you ticked those boxes, apparently, "jet planes and skyscrapers and
good North American mink were made on your demand. You're proba
bly the best dressed woman on the block ... ."92
In short, during the 1950s Danish Modern became linked to good
taste and to a lifestyle that corresponded with the aspirations of the
middle and upper classes. It soon surpassed Swedish Modern, which
had been established earlier as a brand in the United States.93 The New
York Times, in a review of the Design in Scandinavia exhibition, wrote
that "concentration in the furniture section appears to be, as it should
be, on Danish chairs .... "94
87 For possession rituals, see McCracken, Culture and Consumption. According to Madi
gan and Munro, in "House Beautiful," the claim to craftsmanship is a general characteristic
of the furniture industry, even when the claim is not substantiated by the actual production
process. Nonetheless, the Danish network was successful in identifying craftsmanship as a
special characteristic of Danish furniture.
88 Laumann and House, Living Room Styles. See also McCracken, Culture and Consump
tion II, 17-47.
89 Parr, Household Choices.
90 See the map at the end of Moller and Hansen, Vore dages mebler.
91 Judson Jerome, "Go East, Young Man," Chicago Review 18 (1965): 78-86.
92 Betty Jo Ramsey, "What Perfume Tells About You," Los Angeles Times, 13 Nov. i960.
93 Monica Boman also makes this claim in her book on Swedish modern furniture, cf.
Monica Boman, ed., Svenska Mobler, 1890-1990 (Stockholm, 2004), 235. On the United
Kingdom, see Jackson, A Positive Influence, 48.
94 Pepis, Glass and Silver. During the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s, a number of
books and catalogs helped to construct Danish Modern as a brand. See, for instance, Contem
porary Danish Design (Copenhagen, i960); Esbjorn Hiort, Modern Danish Furniture (New
York, 1956); Ulf Hard af Segerstad, Modern Scandinavian Furniture (London, 1963); Arne
Karlsen and Anker Tiedemann, Made in Denmark: A Picture Book about Modern Danish
Arts and Crafts (New York, i960); A. Karlsen, B. Salicath, and M. Utzon-Frank, Contempo
rary Danish Design (Copenhagen, i960); Lassen, The Arts of Denmark; Svend Erik Moller,
Brugskunst i stuen [Danish Design in the Living Room] (Copenhagen, 1956); and Remlov,
Design in Scandinavia.
95 Hansen, Da danske mebler.
96 Regarding the shift from a modern to a postmodern consumer culture, see Douglas B.
Holt, "Why Do Brands Cause Trouble? A Dialectical Theory of Consumer Culture and Brand
ing," Journal of Consumer Research 29, no. 1 (2002): 70-90.
97 Ibid.
1956, while Design in Scandinavia was still touring the country. Kauf
mann's proposal of holding a purely Danish exhibition at the Metropoli
tan Museum of Art was greeted enthusiastically in Denmark. The Danish
state, which participated in the negotiations, focused on its commercial
potential, as did the rest of the Danish network. Kaufmann, however,
wanted the exhibition to be a cultural and historical event, and he
warned that the museum would not accept a purely commercial show.
In response, a Danish official commented that the more "cultural" the
exhibition, the more difficult it would be to obtain funding.98
Kaufmann's position won, and in i960 and 1961 The Arts of Den
mark from Viking to Modern toured New York, Chicago, San Francisco,
and some smaller American cities. The immense promotional efforts of
the Danish network and government were matched by the press coverage
in the United States. The exhibition was a success, but it came at a time
when Danish Design had reached its zenith. Its imminent decline was
not clear to most observers at the time, but Kaufmann hinted at the pros
pect in November i960, when he commented diplomatically on the
"Danish talents, whose bursts of energy seems near some kind of peak."99
Danish Modern no longer carried the same social and cultural
meanings. The world was changing: pop culture and postmodernism
had entered the scene, and Denmark was losing its position as a design
leader. The life cycle of Danish Modern had run its course. In 1978 the
New York Times commented, "Danish modern, the style that domi
nated the popularity polls through most of the 1950s and into the
1960s, has long been out of fashion."100 Only two years later, the archi
tectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable asked, "Whatever happened to Dan
ish Modern?"101 The fairy tale had ended.
The article implied that Danish Design was still considered one of the
leading national brands in furniture design, but at the same time it hinted
that the ongoing industrialization of Denmark was about to create
problems for the line. The style, materials, production methods?and
the idea that furniture was only about functionality?that the cabinet
makers and furniture designers had made their own were coming under
social, cultural, and economic pressure. Critical writings, competition
from other sources, and changing consumer preferences suggested that
a reorientation in Danish design was needed, but the network did little
to ensure this would happen. In the mid-1960s, the furniture that Finn
Juhls furniture had designed for Niels Vodder was no longer selling,
and in 1969 Georg Jensen, who had been among the first to introduce
Danish Modern to the American market in 1948, dropped the line be
cause its pieces, which were no longer popular, were now considered
"period reproductions."103
The construction of Danish Modern was a critical aspect of the
marketing of Danish furniture from the 1930s to the late 1950s. In the long
run, however, this framework became a constraint that limited the
actors' strategic choices and constituted an impediment to their capac
ity to come up with new designs, production methods, materials, and
technology.
The boundaries between handicraft and industry started to blur in
the late 1950s. The cabinetmakers were craftsmen, and proud of it, but
around i960 increasing competitive pressures forced them to consider
how to survive. They held meetings to discuss the situation but contin
ued to cling to the strategy of cooperation between traditional cabinet
makers and modern architects. Although most architects had begun to
collaborate with the furniture industry, only a few members of the net
work challenged the viability of this alliance. The cabinetmakers' re
sponse was to insist on the narrative, adhering to the ideals of crafts
manship and quality and continuing to work in wood.
With increasing labor costs, changing consumer preferences, and
products that were no longer new, it was obvious that changes had to be
made, but the guild's members were constrained by four hundred years
of tradition. For example, in 1958, when Johannes Hansen moved out
of central Copenhagen to a more spacious workshop, he felt the need to
explain himself. He invited his colleagues to attend the opening, where
he described the move as necessary in order to accommodate the ma
chinery for mass-producing furniture.104
103Skjerven, Goodwill for Scandinavian Design. Regarding Finn Juhl's furniture, see
Hansen, Da danske mebler.
104 The invitation is in the Danish Business Archive, archive of "Thorald Madsens Snedkeri,"
box "1912-72: Diverse sager."
ern bore out theorist Karl Weick's observation that, over time, actors in
organizations develop a "trained incapacity to see the world differ
ently."107 Many of the established designers and producers could not
imagine creating furniture that fell outside the Danish Modern tradi
tion. Panton had to go abroad to have many of his designs produced,
and at home both he and Kjaerholm were forced to rely on new compa
nies that had been established for the sole purpose of manufacturing
their designs.108
When the industry ran into problems, it fell back on old formulas. A
comprehensive change in production methods, materials, and styles would
have required them to adopt an alternative narrative. Not surprisingly,
people outside the network developed their own expectations. In 1957 the
American designer and craftsman Jack Lenor Larsen reviewed the im
portant Triennale in Milan for Interiors. He described one of Kjaerholm's
chairs, the PK22, that was on exhibit there as representing
107 Karl Weick, "Sensemaking in Organizations: Small Structures with Large Conse
quences," in Karl Weick, Making Sense of the Organization, 2nd ed. (Maiden, Mass., 2001;
first ed., 1993), 3-31.
108 Horsfeld, Innovations?Fusions; Harlang, Poul Kjserholm; and Hansen, Da Danske
Mebler.
109 Jack Lenor Larsen, "Furniture, Italian and International," Interiors (Nov. 1957): 112-16.
110 Per Arnoldi and Torben Schmidt, "De beslutningsdygtige. Samtale med Jens Bang,"
Mobilia (July 1970).
111 Blaszczyk, in Imagining Consumers, argues that producers took notice of consumer pref
erences. The case of Danish Modern seems to indicate, however, that this was a complicated
dialectic that led to the lock-in of design "type forms." See Molotch, Where Stuff Comes From,
for the concept of "type form" and a discussion of consumers' resistance to changes in design.
This is only part of the story, however. Around 1970, many con
sumers began to consider Danish Modern unfashionable. The furniture
produced by the cabinetmakers was supposed to last a lifetime, but
consumer incomes had increased, and as taste and lifestyles changed,
fewer people wanted to keep their furniture for so long. Furniture be
came part of a fashion cycle, and avant-garde consumers welcomed
new trends and new materials, such as steel and plastic.112 In 1968, the
critic Svend Erik Moller wrote that Danish furniture was losing the
fight for its existence because it was failing to renew itself. Some manu
facturers and designers agreed, and the industry proposed setting up a
special laboratory where a skilled cabinetmaker could experiment with
new forms and materials.113 However, it was not more cabinetmaking
that was needed, but a comprehensive reframing of Danish Design.
This did not happen. Instead the organizations that had been instru
mental in Danish Modern's success since the 1930s were deteriorating.
The Network Falls Apart.114 Den Permanente was the single most
important outlet for the cabinetmakers. Since 1931 they had enjoyed a
monopoly on the furniture sold by Den Permanente, but around i960
its management wanted to begin selling high-quality pieces made by
furniture manufacturers working with the architects who had at one
time collaborated with the cabinetmakers. By 1962-63, the conflict
with the cabinetmakers subsided, but its existence demonstrated that
the distinction between industrial and handcrafted furniture was no
longer meaningful.
Den Permanente's revenue had been stagnating since i960, and in
1962 it received further economic blows when Denmark abolished the
subsidy for exports that earned U.S. dollars and the United States re
duced its customs exemption from $500 to $100. At this point, the
management decided to accept industrially manufactured furniture.
When their protests had no effect, the cabinetmakers left the organiza
tion in 1963 and set up a joint sales exhibition, called Danske Snedker
mestermobler (Danish Cabinetmakers' Furniture). Den Permanente
began accepting some of the most prominent manufactured furniture,
but the rift had damaged the reputations of both the organization and
the cabinetmakers. It also signaled the degree to which the narrative
had turned into an obstacle. The cabinetmakers' new sales organization
never succeeded in uniting the members, and Den Permanente suffered
from the general decline of Danish Design. Although the exhibitor con
tinued to operate until 1983, its golden period ended in the mid-1960s.
Final Remarks
In this article, I have argued that the rise and fall of Danish modern
furniture is best understood when analyzed in a narrative framework.
The "story" of Danish Modern was not simply a marketing or branding
tool but constituted the framework that enabled members of a social
network to make sense of their activities. Over the long term, however,
the narrative constrained the ability of both designers and producers to
renew their designs and production methods once the life cycle of Dan
ish Modern had run its course. When the brand encountered competi
tive pressure in the 1960s, the network began to search for ways to
counteract what its members sensibly perceived to be threats to its sta
tus. However, because they were unable to escape the confines of their
own narrative, they could not visualize new solutions.
Companies, knowingly or unknowingly, use history every day in
branding and in establishing corporate culture and identity. They do so
because human beings and organizations use historical narratives to
make sense of the past and the present. Since narratives form the foun
dation of our understanding, business historians are well advised to
include them in their historical analyses of firms.
One way of analyzing the use of narratives by firms is to employ the
strategies that have been developed under the umbrella of the "linguis
tic turn" and constructivism. This approach is increasingly relevant to
business history as marketing and branding assume growing impor
tance in the activities of global and local companies and as they try to
attract the attention of consumers by telling stories that correspond
with, and contribute to, consumers' perceived identities and lifestyles.117
Business historians who want to understand these activities cannot rely
on traditional, "realist" approaches. Instead, these business historians
should embrace constructivist, analytical strategies in order to ask new
and different questions, and they should shift their perspective from
merely understanding the wants and needs of consumers to exploring
the construction of meaning and identity.118
117 See, for instance, Douglas B. Holt and Juliet B. Schor, "Do Americans Consume Too
Much?" in Douglas B. Holt and Juliet B. Schor, eds., The Consumer Society Reader (New
York, 2000), vii-xxiii; George Ritzer, "Introduction," in Jean Baudrillard, The Consumer So
ciety. Myths & Structures (Thousand Oaks, Calif., 1998; French ed., 1970), 1-23. See also
James B. Twitchell, Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch, College Inc., and
Museumworld (New York, 2004); Holt, How Brands Become Icons; and McCracken, Cul
ture and Consumption II.
118 For some further discussion, see Barbara Czarniawska, Narratives in Social Science
Research (Thousand Oaks, Calif., 2004); David M. Boje, Narrative Methods for Organiza
tional and Communication Research (Thousand Oaks, Calif., 2001); and Niels Akerstrom
Andersen, Discursive Analytical Strategies: Understanding Foucault, Koselleck, Laclau and
Luhman (Bristol, 2003).