A recurring theme of debates on Danish design throughout the 20th century is that it was largely uninfluenced by international trends or -isms and that its modern qualities were instead due to timeless virtues originating from national traditions of simple functionality and crafts-based refinement. This kind of nationalist and protectionist rhetoric has been observed in many countries, despite obvious international exchanges. However, Denmark exhibits a rich case of such a contradictory discourse, and this article presents examples from 1900 until now. Where recent research on Danish design has focused on a historiographical critique of the myth-making that was used to promote Danish design to foreign audiences, this article traces the long line of Danish discussions that made designers and critics believe in the myth of Denmark as an exception to the impact of industrialisation and commercialisation. This discourse on independence and inherent qualities runs contrary to the general historical developments in the geography of design. It seems, however, to mirror the way in which the very proximity of Germany as an industrial superpower around 1900 caused Danes to erect mental borders and focus narrowly on small, cultural differences, not on the actual industrialisation going on in Denmark. As Danish Modern became an international success in the 1950s -based on industrial design and furniture -this discourse was manifested clearly as self-exoticisation, insisting on strong ties to traditions, crafts and the cultural history of Denmark. And it seems to remain active, repeating some of the same counter-factual ideas in both marketing and debates today.Keywords: local national global mapping -Denmark -national identity -Industrial Designgeography of design -self-exoticisation It is said of the Danes that they are a friendly, unpretentious people and as the people are, so are the artists; only the exceptional among them succeed in breaking away from their generation and their milieu. This probably explains why the Danes never formed the vanguard of a new artistic trend. Denmark lies on the edge of Europe far from the source of the great movements, not only geographically but also culturally. 1 Seen in the global, geographical perspective of international design history, Denmark has been close to the European centres of development, Great Britain, France and Germany, from the 19th century and on. And the obvious foreign influences on Danish design are numerous. But among Danish commentators, designers, critics and historians, it has been a recurring and very persistent theme that Danish design was a special case with its own strong traditions and independent developments. 2 As a small country with few resources in the midst of forceful, international developments these reactions were national protectionism expressed as a moral scepticism towards commercialisation as ephemeral fashion and loss of traditional values. What may have started around 1900 as an anxiety towards close neighbour, Germany, with its late but ra...
