Chapter 1 Danish Design and Hygge Headquarters Can our homes make us happier? Can we design for wellbeing? Can we create better homes where we not only live, but thrive? The answers to these questions had been under my nose all the time. Because growing up in Denmark means you grow up with two things. Design and hygge. You may be familiar with some of the names of Danish designers. Arne Jacobsen, Hans Wegner, Poul Kjærholm, Poul Henningsen and Børge Mogensen are not just Danish household names, they are design icons throughout the world - and if you have watched Danish TV dramas such as Borgen, The Killing and The Legacy , you have had a glimpse of Danish urban and interior design. In fact, you may be one of those people who pause Borgen just to make sure those were Poul Henningsen Artichoke lamps in the prime minister's office. That attention to detail is why these shows have sometimes been referred to as 'furniture porn'. By the way, I googled 'furniture porn'. Regretted it immediately. Not what I thought! Denmark is so linked with design that when the Simpsons - in the cartoon show - go to Denmark, the flight attendant instructs the passengers to apply the final coat of varnish if they have been designing and building furniture during the flight. But design goes beyond beautiful chairs. Design by its very definition is a plan to show the function or workings of a place or an object before it is created. It is to imagine how a place or a thing could be different and how this difference may impact on us. Design impacts on how we move in our cities, what food we put on our plate, how we interact with our loved ones, whether we have dinner with our neighbours, how happy we are at work and what we do with the time that we have been given. In short, it impacts on the fabric of life and what makes life worth living. Design can inspire us to become better human beings, to change the world positively, and if we harness the power of design, we have the tools to improve our quality of life. That was the foundation of Danish design. It's a design tradition with a humanistic approach. Design for human beings. An ambition to create functional products with superior quality for the ordinary citizen. Products that could be bought by the average worker. A combination of simplicity, functionality, sustainability, quality, user-friendliness and aesthetics. And design in Denmark has always been a broad field. Architecture, for instance, has always been a big part of it; architects would typically not only design the building but everything in it - furniture that fitted the building and cutlery that fitted the restaurant. One example is the SAS Hotel in the centre of Copenhagen, designed from inside to out by Arne Jacobsen in 1960. Danish design is all about making where we live the best possible environment for our health and wellbeing. Or as John Heskett, professor at the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology and School of Design at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, puts it, 'Design, stripped to its essence, can be defined as the human capacity to shape and make our environment in ways without precedent in nature, to serve our needs and give meaning to our lives.' Perhaps there is only one thing bigger than design in Denmark - and that is hygge. The importance of hygge Hygge is the art of creating a nice atmosphere. It is about being with the people we love. A feeling that we are safe, that we are shielded from the world and can allow ourselves to let our guard down. You may be having an endless conversation about the small or big things in life - or just be comfortable in each other's silent company - or you may simply just be by yourself, enjoying a cup of tea. It is the feeling of home. In other words, hygge is about how we turn a house into a home - into a place where we find comfort and connection. Designing your hygge home is to imagine which activities can take place here that will have a positive impact on your wellbeing - and then shaping your living space to make that happen. It's difficult to overstate how important hygge is to the Danes and the Danish culture. The Danish obsession with hygge seems so ingrained in our cultural DNA and national values that to say you don't care about it would be as much of a social faux pas in Denmark as it would be for a British person to say, 'I don't think we should stay calm - I think we should freak out' or an American saying, 'I've been thinking lately about this freedom thing - and I've come to the conclusion that it is not for me.' Let me try to demonstrate just how much hygge means to us. In 2016, the Danish Minister for Culture asked the Danish people the following question: Which social values, traditions or movements that have shaped us in Denmark will you carry through to tomorrow's society? It was part a national quest to uncover which values have made Danes who we are and would shape society in the future - a Denmark canon. They received more than two thousand suggestions and the ten most important ones were decided upon by the ministry. They included the welfare state, freedom, trust, equality and yes - you guessed it - hygge. In 2019, when the International Astronomical Union celebrated its hundredth anniversary, it awarded each country a planet and asked them to name it. In Denmark, of the 830 suggestions sent in, five were chosen as possibles - hygge was one of them. (Muspelheim won, the name of the burning heat that comes from the south and is guarded by Surt, the fire giant, in Norse mythology. Admittedly, slightly cooler than chocolate by candlelight.) In Denmark, you can even write your Ph.D. on hygge. The first to do this was Jeppe Linnet, and no, it does not mean he spent three years researching the perfect number of cinnamon buns to eat in a day (he discovered that after six months). In fact, Jeppe conducted extensive ethnographic research on how Danes related to their home and how hygge influences the consumption of hospitality, food and drinks. According to his findings, hygge is a situational sense of ease and pleasure - enjoying the here and now - an atmosphere that consists in the way you are with people, the mood of the encounter and the feel of the physical space. The surroundings are very important when it comes to the feeling of hygge. It is about places with atmosphere. Homes are hygge headquarters to the Danes. Not only is it where we relax and recharge, home is also central to our social life in Denmark. Whereas other countries have a culture of socializing predominantly in bars, restaurants and cafés, Danes prefer hjemmehygge (home hygge). Perhaps it is because going out in Denmark is relatively expensive or because Danes are typically introverted people and feel more comfortable in their own surroundings. You can easily tell an introverted Dane from an extroverted Dane. The introverted Dane will look at their shoes and the extroverted Dane will look at your shoes. We are a nation of silent Northmen and -women. Combined with our passion for design, this makes us a nation of introverted nesters with hygge as a national sport. So when Covid-19 hit and the government asked Danes to stay away from crowds, stay indoors, spend time in our homes with as few people as possible, we Danes were, like, 'We've got this. We've been practising for this our entire lives!' But, recently, hygge has also become a global phenomenon. Every year, the World Happiness Report presents a list of happiness levels around the world. The five Nordic countries - Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland - usually top the rankings. That has led to increasing interest in the culture and way of life of Scandinavian countries - such as Danish hygge. Search for books on hygge on Amazon and you'll get more than five hundred results. I wrote one of them. It has been translated into more than thirty-five languages and has sold over a million copies. It set sail in Denmark but has reached every global shore. It has become the second Viking invasion - but this time the hygge hordes are armed with blankets and hot chocolate. Obviously, even before the spread of the word 'hygge', Danes were not the only ones who could enjoy the pleasure that comes from being in good company, in front of the fire, with some mulled wine. As Shakespeare famously wrote in Romeo and Juliet, 'What's in a name? That which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet.' Denmark does not have a monopoly on hygge. I often think of a letter I received after I first wrote about hygge. It was from a French woman, a mother of two young kids, who had been familiar with the feeling of hygge but had not been able to put it into words before now. 'I have had hygge all my life,' she wrote, 'I just didn't know there was a word for that feeling. Before now I would have spent an afternoon with my two kids. We could have been on the sofa with some tea and some biscuits and spent the entire afternoon there. Earlier, I would have called that a lazy afternoon. Now I call that a hygge afternoon.' That made me happy. With the introduction of a word, a concept, a feeling, we had removed the element of guilt from what should be a perfectly fine way to spend an afternoon - making your kids feel loved and comforted. A rose may smell as sweet by any other name - but hygge just feels better. It is a great pleasure for me to see how many people have embraced hygge. I think we could all use more togetherness, warmth, relaxation and simple pleasures in our lives. That is not a Danish thing. That is a human thing. And I think we all deserve to have a hygge home that offers us a place to be happy, even in times of turbulence. In our own little worlds, we are masters of the universe. And maybe finding happiness at home will make us better equipped to make the world a better place. Hygge and happiness Fortunately, the capacity of hygge to bring people together seems universal across cultures and geographical borders. And sometimes, we need do no more than light a candle to create a sense of hygge around our dinner tables. 'After I read about hygge I went out and bought two candelabras and we started lighting them at dinner,' one of my readers told me. He and his wife have three sons: eighteen-year-old twins and a son who was fifteen at the time. When he first started to light candles for dinner his boys teased him. 'What's with the romance, Dad? Do you want to have dinner alone with Mum?' But soon he noticed small changes around the dinner table. Time seemed to slow down. The teenagers became more talkative. The change in atmosphere at the table put the boys in storytelling mood. 'They don't just shovel in the food any more, they sip their wine, they tell us about their day.' By making this simple change, dinnertime is no longer just about food - it is about hygge. And now the boys are the ones who light the candles for dinner. A small design change had a big impact. A different dinner set-up changed how a family interacted. More hygge led to longer family dinners. That got me thinking. If a small change like a candle could have such a large effect, what other hygge design hacks could have a positive impact on our happiness? How do we create spaces and places that have an impact on our wellbeing? How do we improve our quality of life through architecture, lighting, decor and furniture? Can we design for happiness? Perhaps you have experienced how the atmosphere in a room can impact your mood. Perhaps you've also experienced the feeling of walking into a place and wanting to stay there. Maybe it was the warmth of the sunlight coming through the windows or maybe the shelves of books you wanted to explore, or maybe it just felt like home. My job is to understand why you felt that way. I study happiness and how we can improve our wellbeing. A decade ago, I set up the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen. I know, the Happiness Research Institute sounds like a magical place. People imagine all we do all day is play with puppies and balloons and eat ice cream. Sorry to burst your bubble - but we only do that on Wednesdays. In reality, we use scientific methods to understand happiness. We undertake studies over several years and use massive data sets and ask why some people are happier than others. For the past ten years, the Happiness Research Institute has examined how spaces and places impact on our wellbeing, and I have become increasingly curious about the connection between our homes and our happiness, and more and more aware of the relationship between our environment and our emotions. My curiosity has been driven by both professional and personal reasons. At the institute my colleagues and I are always trying to answer questions, based on the happiness data that we receive, for example, how should we design our societies, our cities, our offices, our homes and our lives differently? It's incredible how much our research can tell us about how to best use the space around us, and that's what I'm going to share with you in this book. Excerpted from My Hygge Home: How to Make Home Your Happy Place by Meik Wiking All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
