Showroom

BY RAEANNE MARSH

>>> Center of Modern Design, Scottsdale, Arizona

The showroom's clean, white background serves to frame furnishings.

Connect the dots between the king of Sweden and Frank Lloyd Wright, and the line goes through the Center of Modern Design. Founded on a passion for design and quality, the Center of Modern Design offers what its owners deem the crème de la crème of contemporary design in furniture, audio/visual equipment, flatware and housewares, lighting, bedding and kitchens.

The company's 8,500-square-foot showroom in north Scottsdale is expanding into adjacent space to offer a first-of-its-kind dedicated showroom for Frank Lloyd Wright's line of furniture — next to the store's display of Hästens beds. Hästens is the sleep choice of the king of Sweden, and, in deference to the exclusiveness of the line, the Center of Modern Design provides an unusual opportunity for a "test sleep": a private room outfitted with a Hästens bed plus Bang & Olufsen TV and audio equipment for an immersive experience.

Bang & Olufsen, Artemide lighting, NYLoft kitchens and Georg Jensen flatware and jewelry each have their own section of the showroom, augmenting the floor displays of furniture designed by Hans Wegner, Arne Jacobsen and Poul Kjaerholm. Furniture also climbs one wall, as a colorful array of chairs in an artful presentation by co-owner Niels Christian Jorgensen.

Jorgensen and wife Bodil came to this business — and to Scottsdale — by a circuitous route that began in their native Denmark. Illustrious international careers in high-tech — his in communications innovation and hers in management — included disappointed efforts to secure their green cards for U.S. residency. Success in that dream finally arrived through Bodil's employment with Compaq in Houston; but the hot and humid climate didn't suit their Scandinavian blood, so they took an opportunity to move to the mountains of Park City, Utah. Using their technology background and international business experience, they decided to create an e-commerce business — and focus on design. "Denmark has some of the best designers in the world, and we know the product because we grew up with it in our home," Jorgensen explains.

Launching the Web site on the same day that President Bush invaded Iraq in 2003 resulted in little opportunity for media attention to their business; their participation at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, however, netted coverage in interior design publications. "It was a unique product. No one had exposed Danish design nationwide [previously]." They wanted to couple the product with white-glove delivery service, but Jorgensen concedes their distribution arrangements were not very reliable at first. "Now, we have the most cost- and time-effective supply chain from Europe to the U.S. It's the backbone of the business."

From left, Bodil Jorgensen, Niels Christian Jorgensen and Mark Schwartz.

In 2006, the Jorgensens partnered with Phoenix native Mark Schwartz and created a brick-and-mortar incarnation of their dream. "So few people live surrounded by quality design. We want to change that," says Jorgensen. Customers can now see, touch and experience the products, but every order is still custom.

The "why Scottsdale?" was influenced by the proximity of Taliesin West and its legacy of architect Frank Lloyd Wright. And Jorgensen, ever the adventurer, admits, "We'd never lived in the desert before, so this was also a new life experience." They found a showroom space with dramatic ceilings and opened their doors to designers and the public in 2007.

Furniture featured at the Center of Modern Design includes the Hans Wegner chair selected for John F. Kennedy (whose bad back made most chair designs uncomfortable) for his televised presidential-race debate with Richard Nixon, Arne Jacobsen's revolutionary-for-their-time swan and egg chairs, and other seating for lounging. Among the variety of dining tables is one with a glass top that showcases the sculptural art element of the metal base, and a 120-centimeter round table with extensions that snap onto the perimeter to extend the diameter to 200 centimeters.

In addition to offering a range of professional discounts to the trade, the Center of Modern Design can accommodate meetings or exhibitions. It offers space where seating for 150 people can be arranged facing a wall with a mounted 73-inch flat-screen TV, but can also handle more elaborate requests. Recently, for instance, it was the site of an Audi presentation that included bringing an Audi automobile into the showroom.

Center of Modern Design, 7550 E. Greenway Rd., Suite 110, Scottsdale, AZ 85260; (480) 483-9988 or www.centerofmoderndesign.com.