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If there\u2019s one object in my kitchen that gets more oohs<\/em> and aahs<\/em> than anything else in the room, it\u2019s my Dansk K\u00f8benstyle butter warmer<\/a>. A small-scale saucepan in a warm shade of plum, it never leaves my stove except to get washed. Lest you think it serves aesthetic purposes alone, let me underline the fact that I use it every single day\u2014no, multiple times a day. It is quite simply the prettiest little workhorse I\u2019ve owned.<\/p>\n Dansk has been a familiar brand to me for a while; before I bought my first piece I’d seen pepper mills and trays in the homes of friends, and fawned over casseroles and silverware in vintage stores. The name K\u00f8benstyle, however, was less familiar to me. If you, like me, first heard the word and thought of K\u00f8benhavn, you wouldn\u2019t be remiss\u2014these distinctive pots and pans were designed by Copenhagen-born sculptor and designer Jens Quistgaard.<\/p>\n Back in 1954, Quistgaard\u2019s artistic prowess was discovered by an American couple, Ted and Martha Nierenberg, who were visiting Copenhagen. The couple convinced him to design a line of cookware together, and Dansk was founded that same year. Two years later, K\u00f8benstyle became the name that Quistgaard chose for his first cookware series made from enameled steel\u2014bright, beautiful, and practical.<\/p>\n A trained sculptor, Quistgaard chose to carry his unique form language into the world of industrial design. \u201cFor my father, designed objects had to be conceived of in three dimensions, just like sculptures. His work was marked by a distinct personal touch\u2014in other words, the design, while produced industrially, was not defined by a machine but bore the mark of the human hand,\u201d wrote Quistgaard\u2019s daughter Henriette in an email interview earlier this month.<\/p>\n Dansk archivist Christine Muhlke says that it is an elegant simplicity that has ensured the designs\u2019 timelessness. Muhlke has spent the last many months digging through the brand’s archives in the process of selecting designs to be reissued by Food52. \u201cThe clean, quietly sculptural lines and the use of lightweight enameled steel in shades like teal and yellow\u2026K\u00f8benstyle is unlike any cookware made today\u2014or, for that matter, since 1956,” she adds.<\/p>\n Take for instance the teakwood handle on my butter warmer, which clearly bears the mark of a sculptor but is also extremely functional\u2014both ergonomic to grasp as well as heat-resistant to the touch. Henriette points out that wood was her father\u2019s favorite material: \u201cAs in many of his other designs, the idea of the handle played on the aesthetic gains from combining and contrasting materials, in this case wood and steel.\u201d Interestingly, it was this affinity for the two materials that first got Quistgaard noticed by the Nierenbergs, who had come across his designs on Fjord, the first cutlery set to combine steel with teak handles.<\/p>\n
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