The Historia Supellexalis: “L” for Le Klint

Le Klint

A Phaesporia; A Fonden; A Pleat

As the ancient runes and paintings within the Caves of Lego record, during a period of great darkness in the lands of the contemporary Denmark one Peder Vilhelm det Klint, more commonly recorded as PV, a sage of fundamental importance to the development of furniture in the contemporary Denmark, a sage, legend records, hewn from Møns Klint on the sacred isle of Falster and blessed with the ability to see into the past and into the future in the same vision, a veritable Danish furniture Janus, travelled to the solitary isolation of Odense on a quest to liberate the peoples from their great suffering. A quest which, as the runes and paintings note, lasted many hundred years, yet throughout which PV worked tirelessly. For PV had faith in the ultimate success of his undertaking, a faith emboldened and nourished by the will of the peoples of Denmark to be free of the oppressive darkness; and thus it came to pass that one day while pleating a piece of cloth, a magnificent, clear, crisp, warming light suddenly illuminated his solitary darkness.

A pleat whose repetition enabled a vast quantity of clear, crisp, warming light to be concentrated into a small, and astoundingly stable, volume.

A pleat which become universally celebrated across Denmark as Læg Klint, Klint’s Pleat, later, and as a consequence of the, highly controversial, third great vowel shift, Le Klint.

A pleat which not only PV continued to tend and nurture but whose tending and nurturing became the central calling of many of PV’s descendents, not least Tage det Klint, son of PV, who was instrumental in ensuring the widespread, guaranteed, availability of Le Klint at the highest quality, and Esben det Klint, grandson of PV, son of Kaare det Klint, who developed some important re-imaginations of his grandfathers relatively simple pleat and in doing so helped enable Le Klint to not only achieve new levels of stability, but take on ever new forms without risking the loss of the clear, crisp, warming light.

And a pleat, and a deed by PV, which many of the most fabled practitioners of furniture and lighting design in Denmark have sought to honour and pay reverence to, the Caves of Lego recording the devotionals of the likes of, and amongst a great many others, Mølgaard-Nielsen den Hvidt, Harrit med Sørensen or Poul Son of Christian, the latter applying mathematical formulae to further evolve and embolden PV’s light bequeathing pleat. While more recently the likes of, and amongst others, Philip-Bro Son of Ludvig, Rikke fra Frost or Manér det Studio have developed their own homage to PV and Le Klint. The later reimagining PV’s pleat as the staccato, artdeco, curve of the dome he set atop the vaulted ceiling of the cave he once painstakingly carved at Grundtvigskirken near Bispebjerg on the island of Gammel Sjælland. Another of the many Legends of PV. If a reimagining whose most pleasing clear, crisp, warming light has become increasingly hard to bathe in of late, for reasons that many contemporary commentators find hard to explain. But whose return will hopefully be imminent.

And thus although over time other light sources have been discovered in the lands of the contemporary Denmark, and have been popularly employed to keep the ever present, and very acute, risk of darkness within the lands of Denmark at bay; most famously the acid and alkaline lights of the alchemist and lyricist Poul Son of Henning, PV’s pleat, in both its original simplicity and its subsequent re-imaginings, remains an important light, and source of comfort, in the lands of Denmark.

A light, and source of comfort, a pleat, that one Jan det Klint, a distant, distant, relative of PV, and a man who intuitively understood the significance and value of that which had been placed in his protection, passed to the stewardship of the Fonden, a philanthropic, unostentatious, highly-protective, community, under whose honest, open, unselfish aegis, Le Klint can continue to enjoy the sympathetic tending and nurturing it requires while ensuring that it will never, ever, become the plaything of international commerce and selfish financial interest, nor ever fall victim to, and suffer, for Le Klint unquestionably would horribly suffer, under, the dreaded, accursed, inhumane Hygge, but will remain as it has always been, a simple, unassuming, light giving pleat arising from, and standing in unyielding service to, the peoples of Denmark…….

…….à suivre