Lauritzen, Vilhelm

Vilhelm Lauritzen was born on September 9, 1894 in Slagelse, Denmark. He studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, graduating in 1921. The following year he founded his own firm, Vilhelm Lauritzen Arkitekter, in 1928 and remained active in the firm until 1969. He received the Academy’s Gold Medal in 1926 and up through the 1920s he created a number of monumental designs in a classicist style which were never realized. Towards the end of the decade he traveled in Central Europe and became acquainted with the latest trends in Functionalist architecture with its technical and structural innovations. This inspired him to a grounded and restrained Modernism and it was with such buildings that he had his breakthrough. His first large commission to be built was the Daells Varehus department store in Copenhagen built in stages from 1928 to 1935 as one of the first examples of Modernist architecture in Denmark. He went on to win the competition for the design the first Copenhagen Airport which was constructed from 1937 to 1939.Another major project included the national Danish broadcaster DR’s Radio Building while its Television Building was designed by his firm with Mogens Boertmann as its principal architect. Lauritzen also designed furniture, often in connection with his buildings. His lamps, especially his table lamps from the 1930s, manufactured by Louis Poulsen, continue to arouse interest at auctions.