Claus C. Simonsen

Simonsen has always had a weakness for designing furniture. When he entered the Aarhus School of Architecture in 1988, he wanted to become a furniture designer. However, he quickly became fascinated with architecture and graduated as an architect in 1994. For him, furniture design is about variations on simple themes. The theme is the archetype that the designer works with: the table, the chair, etc. He compares furniture design to jazz music, where players improvise on jazz standards, as he says: "as a furniture designer you also improvise on archetypes to create furniture that is both recognisable and innovative."

Simonsen has designed buildings, interiors and furniture for Henning Larsens Architects and Erik Korshagen Architecture, among others. He has worked mainly in the design of offices, educational buildings and residential homes in Denmark and abroad. Today, he passes on his skills to new generations and teaches building design at DTU, the Technical University of Denmark.