The Cabinetmakers’ Autumn Exhibition features a rug-wrapped chair and a giant candle holder

The 2026 edition of the Danish furniture show has opened at Museum Ordrupgaard, with works by 36 designers on show alongside historic paintings and sculptures.

For this year's edition of the Cabinetmakers' Autumn Exhibition, or Snedkernes Efterårsudstilling, designers were invited to contribute works that explore the relationship between light and form.

The theme was chosen to reflect this year's venue, the Snøhetta-designed galleries of Museum Ordrupgaard, which house important works of French and Danish art from the 19th and 20th centuries.

"In both impressionism and furniture design, light becomes a means of shaping an atmosphere and creating a sense of presence," the exhibition overview stated.

"While the painters explored the impact of light on colours and atmosphere, designers examine the encounter between light and form, materials and surfaces, as use, function and aesthetic fuse into one, and even minor details and variations in light influence our perception of the furniture."

The results include a 1.8-metre-high floor lamp that looks like a candle holder, by designers Karen Kjærgaard, Nanna Gram and Peter Skrzipczyk, and an elm wood chair wrapped in a patterned wool rug, by designers Karin Carlander and Christian Street.

Other eye-catching works include a cube made out of squashed ceramic vessels, by ceramicist duo Claydies, and a heavy bronze piece designed to look like a lightweight woven chair by designer Hans Sandgren Jakobsen.

The Cabinetmakers' Autumn Exhibition has been an annual fixture since 1981, but its origins go back even further.

It began as a revival of the historic Cabinetmakers’ Guild Exhibition, which ran from 1927 to 1966 and debuted some of Denmark's most iconic furniture designs, from Børge Mogensen's Spanish Chair to Hans J Wegner's Round Chair.

Most of the works are contributed by members of the association, which is made up of over 80 designers, architects and manufacturers, although a handful of guests are invited to join each year.

One of this year's most attention-grabbing works was contributed by guest exhibitor Matteo Fogale, a Uruguayan designer based in Copenhagen.

Fogale partnered with lighting brand Astep on a family of curvaceous ash wood lamps of different heights, topped by rotating discs that double as both lights and dimmer switches.

August Ostrow's Soft Structure Lamp is another of the guest works. The American designer took cues from folded metal forms found in heating and ventilation machinery to create his copper and paper table light.

Timber craft is well represented in the show, with one particularly impressive piece by designer Andreas Lund and cabinetmaker Søren Risvang Snedkeri.

The pair collaborated on a table with an experimental frame of slender pine rods and 3D-printed joints.

Anna Søgaard designed a pair of cherry wood frames with opposing curves, while Claus Landry Bjerre crafted a pine wood cabinet incorporating 3D-milled replicas of 3D-scanned hazel branches.

Notable works in other materials include Carlo Volf's wire-frame lamp, Zeyu Rong's curvy translucent screen, and a light formed of four triangular glass tubes by Jonas Trampedach and Viola Heyn-Johnsen.

The Cabinetmakers’ Autumn Exhibition is on show at Museum Ordrupgaard in Charlottenlund from 23 October to 13 December 2026. See Dezeen Events Guide for more design events around the world.

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