Jon Brøcker, born 1962 1990 1993 1994 2000 Aarhus School of Architecture Designit Guldmann C.F. Møller Architects C.F. Møller Design designed QUINTUS for Lampas. C.F. Møller Design Jon Brøcker Surrounded by prototypes and with views of the Bay of Aarhus, Jon heads up C.F. Møller’s five-strong design team. He was hired as the firm’s first industrial designer back in 2000. How did you come to be a designer? There were numerous factors that came into it. My parents were teachers, and our home was partly furnished with PH, Wegner and Kaare Klint pro- ducts. My father was a woodwork teacher, who loved wood and was very meticulous. When I went to high school, I had a girlfriend whose father had a severe physical disability, having been born without arms. However, this had not prevented him from having both a family and managerial jobs. He could do everything with his feet, from mowing the lawn and driving the car to writing and pouring schnapps at Christmas dinner. I probably already had the idea that I wanted to be an archi- tect. One day, we were talking about it, and he said to me: “So create some attractive assistive devices.” It’s hard to say what exactly lies behind the choices we make. But I grew up with architect- designed furniture, and I encountered individuals who needed a particular physical environment. This made me aware that designing our surroun- dings is a profession and that it offered exciting possibilities. Aarhus School of Architecture had a strong profes- sional environment around its ID programme. There was a great deal of focus on teaching us to put ourselves in the shoes of our users, and the fact that users are often a large and diverse group. As a graduate, I actually ended up designing assistive devices. I became the first industrial designer at Guldmann, a company that, among other things, produces personal lifters for the healthcare sector. In 2000, I experienced a rare case of perfect timing. I contacted C.F. Møller’s design studio, which had always ranked high in my professio- nal consciousness, to convince them that they needed an industrial designer like me. It turned out that members of the partner group were con- sidering the exact same thing. In a short time we 191
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