Carl Hansen RF1903 Sideways Sofa

Founded in 1908 by master cabinet maker Carl Hansen, Carl Hansen & Son today reflects over 100 years of furniture history with respect and passion for craftsmanship. The world's largest manufacturer of furniture designed by Hans J. Wegner, Carl Hansen & Son also produces designs by Mogens Koch, Kaare Klint, Ole Wanscher, Bodil Kjaer, Børge Mogensen.

Born in 1973, Danish designer Rikke Frost has always been curious about the combination of different craft traditions and types of material, a fact clearly reflected in her design portfolio where traditional and contemporary design is expressed in sofas, tables, chairs and lamps with an organic idiom. This holds true in the Sideways Sofa, which is Frost’s first collaboration with Carl Hansen & Son. Here, she blends classic materials such as woven paper cord and wood in a modern and functional design.

Rikke Frost’s interest in crafts and materials dates back to her childhood in the small Danish town of Bov. Her curiosity later led her to The Aarhus School of Architecture, where she trained as an industrial designer. She chooses materials, shapes and craft methods that can be incorporated in the best possible way into modern production – like at Carl Hansen & Son’s furniture factory on Funen, Denmark, where old craft traditions such as wickerwork with woven paper cord and a high-tech production go hand in hand.

After several years in London, where Rikke Frost worked as a designer and buyer at Heal & Son, she returned to Denmark in 2004 to set up her own design studio, Rikke Frost Design. Later, she also began teaching at The Aarhus School of Architecture.

In 2019, Rikke Frost took part in the TV programme ‘Denmark’s Next Classic’, a competition in which she and four other Danish designers had to produce six different furniture pieces in a short time to create Denmark’s next design classic. It was as part of this TV programme that Rikke Frost created the Sideways Sofa in just three short weeks and her design went on to win in its category.

Rikke Frost has won and been nominated for several awards, including the Danish Design Award and Bolig Magasinets Design Award. She has also taken part in several exhibitions, including the Women in Danish Furniture Design exhibition at Trapholt Museum of Modern Art in Kolding, Denmark.