Kristian Vedel

Kristian Vedel was a Danish industrial designer and part of the early Scandinavian Design movement. Educated as a cabinet maker in 1942, he studied at the Department of Furniture at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and graduated in 1946 from the School of Arts, Craft and Design in Copenhagen. He was acting chairman of the Danish Furniture Designers and founding member and acting chairman of the first Society of Industrial Designers in Denmark. Between 1968 and 1971, Kristian started the first Department for Industrial Design at the University of Nairobi, Kenya. Heavily influenced by Kaare Klint and the Bauhaus School, the Kristian Vedel Style was the “Classic Modern” with a creative use of materials and a strong sense of functionality and ergonomic demands. Kristian Vedel was also a pioneer in using an early form of plastic known as melamine in the 1970's. He died at the age of 80 in March 2003.