Profile: Cecilie Manz

The design, art and architecture worlds often collide; certain principles naturally extend from one practice to another and creatives comfortably cross-pollinate. Danish designer Cecilie Manz, however, prefers to treat them as separate pursuits, allowing her affinity for fine art to inspire but not define her industrial design work, which is instead embedded in utility and intuition.

Manz, who was born in Denmark to two ceramicists, was exposed to design from a young age, spending much of her early childhood in her parents’ studio. “I always liked being creative, and it’s easy to look back now and say it’s obvious – I was always turning things upside down and thinking about how things are made – but I wanted to be a bit rebellious, which is why I chose furniture instead of porcelain or ceramic,” she says with a smile.

“I’m not into this in between of art, design and architecture – they’re three different things,” says Manz, adding that “arty design pieces” aren’t within her wheelhouse.

Originally interested in a career as a painter, her studies at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and the University of Art and Design in Helsinki paired with her natural affinity for problem solving and practicality eventually led her to industrial design. Her studies directly exposed her to Denmark’s design legacy; “my professors used to work with the old masters like Arne Jacobsen and that was a normal thing at that time,” she offers. It also prompted her to educate herself more deeply on Scandinavia’s design heritage. Ultimately, the functionality and usefulness of industrial design captivated her, and she founded her own studio shortly after graduating.

Manz’s approach to design is embedded in pragmatics and her work conveys a sense of clarity without being sterile or overly rudimentary. “I’m not into this in between of art, design and architecture – they’re three different things,” she says, adding that “arty design pieces” aren’t within her wheelhouse. It’s a sentiment that demonstrates her commitment to one of the foremost Scandinavian design principles, form follows function, and her ability to imbue her work, be it lighting, furniture or accessories for the home, with emotion and elementality in equal measure. “There’s overlap,” she admits, “but a chair designed for a meeting room cannot be the same as a chair made completely freely.”

“I always liked being creative, and it’s easy to look back now and say it’s obvious – I was always turning things upside down and thinking about how things are made – but I wanted to be a bit rebellious, which is why I chose furniture instead of porcelain or ceramic,” she says.

She uses the word ‘freely’ in reference to personal projects or those without a strict brief, and despite being regularly tapped for collaborations by some of the leading brands in contemporary design, including Muuto, Reform and Fritz Hansen, she still finds time for a handful of “free projects” every year. “I call it my second lane, this experimental work,” she shares. “That’s not to say working under a brief is evil, but of course there are some constraints. However, if I do my own chair, I can give it three legs or ten legs.”

Occasionally, these projects form the basis of broader collaborations and find their way into production. The Workshop Chair for Muuto is one such example, as is the Fritz Hansen Taburet stool, which Manz initially designed for an exhibition. This stool led to a continued partnership with the brand and an evolving discourse around prototyping and experimentation. “This is something you can only do when you have this feeling of comfort and trust,” says Manz of her rapport with the Fritz Hansen team.

Most recently, they collaborated on the Monolit chair, which was released during this year’s instalment of 3daysofdesign in Copenhagen. The chair, which demonstrates an indisputably Scandinavian attitude realised with a contemporary ingenuity, is redolent of Manz’s time-tested approach but with a slightly more expressive quality.

Importantly, though, she never strays too far from her adopted design principles. When conceptualising a new piece, she says “it’s important that it’s useful and familiar.” She adds, “not familiar as in already seen, but I don’t think everything needs to be so special. Some things are recognisable and natural, and you don’t need to explain them; if it’s a chair, you sit and it’s nice. If it’s a cup and your hand fits the handle – end of story.”