Thirty-Six Modules and Forty Colours

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Peter J. Lassen did not design a piece of furniture. He designed a set of parts and left the arrangement to whoever owns them.
Thirty-Six Modules and Forty Colours

Peter J. Lassen came to furniture from the Danish navy, moving into the industry in 1954. Over the following decades he worked alongside Arne Jacobsen, Jørn Utzon, Piet Hein and Verner Panton — an unusually direct line into the generation that defined Danish modernism.

The Studio Secretary folds down into a desk and closes flat again afterwards. Against a white wall under a timber ceiling, the only thing announcing it is the colour.

A set of parts, not a product

He founded Montana in 1982 in Hårby, on the island of Funen, and designed the shelving system that carries the company's name. The square module, the rounded corner and the strong colour were all unexpected at the time.

The idea was never a single piece of furniture. Thirty-six base modules in four depths, finished in more than forty colours, are meant to be combined by whoever owns them. Lassen put it as a requirement rather than a style: good design demands honesty and respect.

Two rooms built from the same catalogue. Left, the Runner Office Unit on castors in oxblood and red. Right, the Workshop Work Desk in green. Same modules, different decisions.

That is why the Montana pieces read as a palette rather than a catalogue. The names — Parsley, Ruby, Cumin, Camomile, Oat — are colours before they are products. You are choosing a combination, not a model number.

A lilac frame, a brass hook, a coat hanger. The Colour Frame Mirror is a mirror and a place to hang something, and the frame colour is doing all the work.

Forty years on, the system has not been redesigned. It has only been recoloured.

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