Kristian Vedel

Kristian Vedel (1923 - 2003) was a Danish industrial designer who completed his apprenticeship as cabinetmaker in 1942. During 1944-45 he studied under professor Kaare Klint at the Department of Furniture at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. In 1946, he graduated from the Furniture Design Department of the School of Arts, Crafts and Design, where he lectured 1953-56. Vedel served as chairman of Danish Furniture Designers 1947-49. He was instrumental in establishing the society Industrial Designers of Denmark and served as its first chairman from 1966 to 1968.

In 1950, he married Birgit Arnfred and they set up a design studio in Humlebæk in 1954. The couple had four children but divorced in 1961 and Vedel married Ane Pedersen. Between 1968 and 1971, he led the Department of Industrial Design at the University of Nairobi, Kenya. They returned to Denmark in 1972 to establish a design studio on Thyholm, in North-Western Jutland, where Vedel cultivated the landscape, bred Shropshire sheep, and researced utilization of their wool, hides and meat.

Vedel was awarded 1st prize by Copenhagen Cabinetmakers Guild (1947), Louisiana Museum Prize (1957), silver medal at La Triennale di Milano (1957), gold medal at La Triennale di Milano (1961) and the Lunning Prize (1962). In 2007, Trapholt Museum in Denmark mounted a retrospective exhibition of his major works.