In this solo episode of the How to Live in Denmark podcast, host Kay Xander Mellish reflects on Danish cultural attitudes toward beauty, contrasting the rarely‑noticed Miss Denmark pageant with Denmark’s deep appreciation for well‑designed objects. She explains the Danish concept of an "arkitekttegnet hus"—a home whose beauty lies in modern, functional design—and describes the national love for streamlined, high‑quality housewares and furniture that blend utility with a touch of humor. Mellish then contrasts this design‑centric aesthetic with Denmark’s relatively muted interest in classical fine art, noting the popularity of contemporary interactive museums (e.g., Aarhus Art Museum) versus the less‑visited Thorvaldsen Museum of classical sculpture. She discusses how Danish views on nudity, equality, and the cultural principle of jantelov shape a social environment where compliments—especially about appearance—are rare, and explains why Danes often avoid praising personal beauty. The episode concludes with a brief promotion of the How to Live in Denmark book and social‑media channels.
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Hello and welcome to the How to Live in Denmark podcast. I'm Kay Xander Mellish. I get a little local newspaper in my mailbox every week. And this week, in between the usual stories about which local project has been able to squeeze the biggest subsidy out of Copenhagen city government, there was an article about the Miss Denmark pageant. 2 teenagers from the neighborhood, one an ethnic Dane and one of Middle Eastern descent, had been selected to represent us in the pageant. Now, that surprised me. I've been in Denmark for 15 years, and I'd never even heard of Miss Denmark. Denmark is usually not the sort of place where women in bathing suits walk around while fully dressed men debate their merits. And quite frankly, Danes are usually much less interested in the beauty of people than the beauty of things. If you really want to get a Dane all hot and bothered, start talking about some thing that is beautifully designed. I do translations sometimes from Danish to English, and recently I had to figure out how to translate the expression arkitekttegnet hus, literally architect-drawn home. Now, of course, all houses bigger than a mud hut are designed by some sort of architect, but that's not what the expression means. An architect-drawn home, from the Danish point of view, has modern flowing lines and open arrangement of rooms and Great big windows to let in light during the long Danish winter, and of course let thieves see all the designer furniture inside the house. A house like that celebrates the hand of the designer, makes the designer visible, makes you look at the design and comment on it. That, to a Dane, is beauty. In Denmark, beauty is usually found in something practical. Has been very well designed. Housewares, particularly kitchenwares, are a Danish design favorite. They don't have to be from expensive materials, but they have to be simple, streamlined, and work flawlessly. The beauty is in the usefulness. Danes also love unfussy furniture, durable fabrics with bright patterns, and soft rugs that are easy to clean. A little high-design personal touch in a home is required, too. I've seen bright copper coat hangers, cut crystal candle holders, wood monkeys. Their nirvana is goods of extremely high quality with maybe a slight twist of humor. Interestingly, the Danes' passion for world-class home decor does not always extend to what's hanging on the wall. It's quite common to see a Danish interior with some of the world's finest and most expensive furniture set off by amateur paintings done by the lady who lives there, or her adult daughter, or somebody's deceased great-aunt. Beauty as expressed in the fine arts, like classical painting and sculpture, is less of a passion in Denmark. The Vikings were not really oil painters, So the first real Danish oils were from about 200 years ago. They mostly depict young farmers and their love lives, and you can still check them out at the kind of museum that's popular with the over-60 crowd. Modern art is much more popular in Denmark, particularly the contemporary interactive museums. Aarhus Art Museum has a great rooftop rainbow you can walk through and see the city below in all different colors. Lots of families with kids there. Less popular are museums of classical sculpture, like the Thorvaldsen Museum in downtown Copenhagen. Thorvaldsen was a Dane who went to Rome to learn to sculpt like an Italian. So the Thorvaldsen Museum is filled with white marble shaped like strong, muscled warriors and soft-breasted naked nymphs in the Greek and Roman style. Here's a tip: if you ever want to have an affair in Denmark, meet your sweetheart at the Thorvaldsen Museum. You and your secret lover will have the place to yourself. You might meet a couple Italian or Spanish tourists, but you won't meet anyone from Denmark. Classical art celebrating the beauty of bodily perfection is just not very Danish. Now, Danes are okay with nudity as long as it's ordinary, lumpy human nudity. But the idea of any human being an ideal doesn't fit with their passion for equality, which suggests that no one person should be better than anyone else. It's why you'll rarely receive compliments of any sort in Denmark, and particularly not compliments on your looks. Partly that's because Danish men are very Timid about possibly making a woman uncomfortable by praising her structure. It's partly because the Danish language does a poor job of describing beauty. Words like flot, smuk, pæn, kyn, yndig, fin, and lækker don't have a lot of romantic flow to them. And it's partly because physical beauty is something you're given instead of something you earn. Which makes it less valuable in Danish eyes. But there's also a little bit of the jantelov there, a little, how dare you be better looking than me? To compliment someone's appearance might be to puff her up too much, make her think she's better than the others. A few years ago, I wore a new and very expensive dress to a party, and while I had a good time, I was kind of miffed that no one mentioned my outfit. I said this to a Danish friend a couple of days later, and she confirmed that, yeah, she did like the dress, which she thought was beautifully made. But nobody said anything about it at the party, I said. Why would we do that? she said. You already knew you looked good. And that's the How to Live in Denmark podcast for this week. Pick up the How to Live in Denmark book at Academic Bookstore at Copenhagen University on Amager Sondre Campus. Or at DTU Bookstore, or at the Danish National Museum or Statens Museum for Kunst. You can also get the ebook on Amazon, iBooks, Saxo, or Google Play. Follow us on Facebook at How to Live in Denmark or on Twitter at How to Live in DK. The two is a number. See you next time.
