Decoration Details

Decoration -mobile

Decoration

Present name

Town, country

Valby, Denmark

Description

interior | total decoration | fours floors with entrance, stairwells, corridors, doors, offices, meeting rooms and canteen in basement

Completed

1982

Status

not extant

Removed

2009

Done by

Poul Gernes, Aase Seidler Gernes, Ulrikka Gernes

IDname

PG-Z-126

Anthology

Finn Thybo Andersen on Borgen Publishers

One of the great and fabulous decorations in which colours and the function of the building are completely interwoven. Borgen Publishers were the artists’ publisher, and Jarl Borgen was famous on the Copenhagen art scene. When Borgen took over the house, Poul Gernes came out and did a colour scheme. Together with Aase and Ulrikka, he painted the whole thing before the publishing company moved in.

The yellow colours in the grand staircase captured the sunlight in the centre of the building. From here, the decoration spread, labyrinthine, with hand-painted borders and dots, out into corridors, doors, workspaces, meeting rooms, and down into the green canteen in the basement. This was a prodigious jumble of books, people, activities and Jarl Borgen’s large collection of contemporary art. Glorious!

Finn Thybo Andersen: Poul Gernes Decoration Projects. London 2018, p. 374. Translated by Dan A. Marmorstein. Excerpt.