Straight edge

Since founding her studio in 1998, Danish designer Cecilie Manz has contributed to the catalogues of manufacturers including Fritz Hansen, Bang & Olufsen, Kasthall, Maruni and Hermès. Considering how prolific she is, it’s peculiar that the lasting impression that she leaves is one of restraint or, rather, compelling discretion.

“I like to balance output and inspiration,” Manz tells monocle in her studio in Sølvgade, Copenhagen. Sitting across an oak table that she designed for Fritz Hansen in 2009, she is cradling a cup of hojicha and wearing a pair of pleated black trousers by Japanese designer Issey Miyake. Surrounding us are stacks of paper weighed down by stones, cardboard prototypes and tchotchkes that she brought back from her trips across the globe, all neatly displayed on shelves.

Here, projects start as paper sketches or cardboard mock-ups before being refined in the workshop. Manz believes that function is the driving force of design, which means that all the pieces that she creates require considered examination. “I want to be involved in every step of the process, not just the part where you draw nice doodles,” she says. Manz employs two assistants to help with her work, including creating all the digital 3D models so that she can maintain her personal creative process as a strictly analogue affair. “With furniture, you can’t skip making mock-ups. You need to see how something interacts with your body.”

Born to ceramicist parents in Odsherred, about an hour’s drive from Copenhagen, Manz knew from early on that she would pursue a creative career. “I picked furniture design to do something different from my parents,” she says with a smile. “That was my crazy teenage rebellion.” Manz was admitted to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and went on to found her eponymous  studio soon after graduating.

Grants from art foundations initially helped to keep her afloat but then her designs were picked up for production. From there, she began to receive commissions for tables, chairs, lights, glass objects and even the occasional hat stand – all crafted with perfect clean lines and a purity of purpose. Awards including the Finn Juhl Prize in 2007 followed. She was named designer of the year at Maison & Objet in 2018 and again at the Scandinavian Design Awards in 2024. Today her work can be found in the permanent collections of the Design Museum Denmark and New York’s Moma.

Manz now has an extensive back catalogue. Does she ever run out of inspiration? “No, I have never had that problem,” she says after a short pause. “It’s just work. I just get on with it. Maybe you’ll draw some bad sketches but you can always destroy those. You have to produce and, at some point, you might find something interesting that you can dig into.” With a pragmatism and straightforwardness, Manz has quietly cut through the noise of the design industry, negotiating its evolving tastes.

Her pet peeves include the word “trends”, using a material because it’s popular rather than questioning its purpose and the art world creeping into the realm of design to sell decorative pieces with little to no function. “When I entered this field, I worried and felt guilty about bringing more stuff into the world,” says Manz. “But I design functional objects that last a long time. It justifies my practice if they are at least of a good quality and have nice design – parameters that you might call old-fashioned design virtues, right?” Sometimes, it’s as simple as that. — L
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