Finn Juhl’s Classic UN Clock Remade for the Modern Home

All photography courtesy Architectmade

With a teakwood face that retains all its natural grain and a clean aluminum dial, the classic Finn Juhl clock portrays the modern dicta of truth in materials and simplicity of form and function. The architect Finn Juhl, a pivotal figure of modern Danish design, was better known for his furniture, especially chairs—the Model 45, the chieftain, and the Pelican—that eloquently combined sensual, organic curves with the minimalism of Modernism.

The project that brought Juhl international recognition, and introduced Danish Modern to the world, was his interior design for the United Nations Trusteeship Council Chamber in New York in 1950. A clock was a small, beautiful detail of this interior, and it continues to tick away at the top right-hand side of the chamber.

In October, Architectmade, a company that reintroduces historic products designed by Danish architects in order to keep their legacies alive, reproduced the Finn Juhl clock and launched it at the Danish Embassy in Tokyo. The new version has been halved in size to fit into the modern home, but it is a worthy reminder of the original that continues to mark the passage of an age at the UN while itself remaining timeless.