Frits Schlegel was a functionalist Danish designer who ushered in a new era of architecture with his use of poured concrete. Schlegel was born in Frederiksberg, Copenhagen in 1896. Interested in building from a young age, he undertook a masonry apprenticeship and later studied at the Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts graduating in 1923. Following graduation, he began to receive awards for his work including a 1927 medal for his design for a university in Aarhus. Schlegel’s earlier buildings were inspired by French architect Auguste Perret and his use of classical harmony and symmetry is closely related to the creations of Perret.
In 1934, after working first with architect Edward Thomsen and later with Gudmund Nyeland Brandt, Schlegel founded his own architectural practice. That same year he designed a chapel for the Mariebjerg Cemetery. Created out of poured concrete, his chapel exudes a sense of measured calm that flows into the rest of the soothing cemetery landscape. In 1954, Schlegel designed the Tivoli Concert Hall for the Tivoli Gardens in Denmark with fellow architect Hans Hansen. Schlegel and Hansen decorated the façade with playful and colorful ceramic tiles by noted graphic artist Mogens Zieler creating a whimsical structure in keeping with the carnival atmosphere of Tivoli Gardens.
Throughout his career and alongside his architectural projects, Schlegel designed furniture melding the machine aesthetic of the Bauhaus with the warmer materials and curves of Scandinavian design. Schlegel died in 1965, but his landmark concrete structures can be seen to this day across the urban landscape of Denmark.
