Design is a ubiquitous element in everyday life, both as a general consumer and as a creator of design. The daily alternation between design as ‘function’ and ‘ambition’ is the starting point for everything I create.

Design is a rhythm, an iteration and a process of constant change. But it is also material impact, and the ability to create real and lasting design. But most important of all is that design manifests itself from thought to concrete action.

Design is curiosity, respect and care, which at the same time pushes the boundaries of how we understand our space and the objects we surround ourselves with. The goal is always to develop designs and furniture with aesthetic consideration for time and place that contribute more than the purely functional.

The users are inextricably linked to the designed objects – like everyday scenography, as design becomes part of the individual’s understanding of self. Design raises the questions: Who are you in relation to your surroundings? How does the form and material relate to your mind and body? How do you fit into the whole?

I am interested in the past, present and future of Danish design. We are entering a new and exciting time for Danish furniture and product design. We respect and stand on the shoulders of the modernist coryphaeus and our historical aesthetic upbringing – but it’s time for something new! My ambition is to insist that good design matters.

Maria Bruun is a trained furniture designer from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Design School, based in Copenhagen, Denmark, where she works with furniture, interiors and exhibitions at the junction between the artistic and commercial, insisting that one does not exclude the other. 

She joins a long-standing Danish design tradition. With sincere respect for classic Danish furniture design, Maria builds on this foundation in an innovative approach, and creates her designs in close dialogue with skilled craftsmen. 

In 2021, Maria Bruun was awarded the prestigious Danish Finn Juhl Prize. Maria Bruun was also the first furniture designer to be included in the two-year work grant ‘Young artistic Elite’ from the Danish Arts Foundation (2019-2020). In 2018, Bruun was nominated for the Dezeen Awards ‘New Designer of the Year’. In 2015, she was admitted as a member of the Danish Artists Society. In 2014, Maria Bruun won the Danish Design Awards “Design of the Year”. Her works have been shown at renowned museums such as Design Museum in London and Designmuseum Denmark. Most recently, she presented the total installation ‘Reflected Surroundings’ on the acclaimed art and design platform Design Miami Basel.