Tempus

Tempus, our exhibition with De La Espada for 3daysofdesign 2026, marks the third year of a continuing collaboration grounded in a shared understanding of what time asks of design.

Tempus is about what endures. Materials, craft and longevity, and the relationships that grow around them. For us, time is not a threat to design. It is the proof of its quality.

The Portuguese furniture house De La Espada presents selected works from across the years, alongside new pieces. Since its founding in 1993, the house has built its practice on a single conviction: that furniture should be made to last a hundred years. It is the same conversation we are having.

The exhibition is styled by Pernille Vest, allowing materials, surfaces and proportions to speak together with quiet precision. For this year’s exhibition, she has selected local craft, vintage objects and colours that form a shared narrative about time.

Details

CaseExhibition

Type Kitchen, Showroom

ModelSolid Classic

MaterialeBurnished brass, Oak

Del link

Materials that carry time

If time is the exhibition’s subject, materials are its foundation. They are what carries the years. The wood that deepens through use. The stone that grows more beautiful with touch. The metal that shifts in colour over decades. A good piece of furniture is, first and foremost, a good choice of material.

For the exhibition, photographer Claus Troelsgaard has created a series of new images: studies in metal, wood and stone. A poetic interpretation of the relationship between craft and material that underlies our work.

The images stand as a work in their own right within the exhibition. They show the materials before they become furniture.

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Garde Hvalsoe -TEMPUS - Claus Troelsgaard UN (9)

Garde Hvalsoe -TEMPUS - Claus Troelsgaard UN (7)

Garde Hvalsoe -TEMPUS - Claus Troelsgaard UN (3)

Garde Hvalsoe -TEMPUS - Claus Troelsgaard UN (1)

Garde Hvalsoe -TEMPUS - Claus Troelsgaard UN

Garde Hvalsoe -TEMPUS - Claus Troelsgaard UN (10)

“We have never measured our work by how it looks when it leaves the workshop. We measure it by how it looks ten, twenty, forty years later. It is the only measure that matters.”
Søren Lundh Aagaard, Owner

Made to Return: a kitchen that came home, and will go out again

At the centre of the showroom stands a kitchen we built in 2015. It has been lived with for a decade, and now it is back. Around it stand the most recent pieces from the workshop. At first glance, the difference is hard to see.

It is not a coincidence. It is the point.

For us, the measure of a piece of furniture has never been how it looks when it leaves the workshop. It has been how it looks ten, twenty, forty years later. Whether the wood has gained depth through use. Whether the joints still hold. Whether the design still feels inevitable rather than dated.

The returned kitchen is model Solid Classic in Dinesen HeartOak. It is not a restoration project. It required very little work. It came back because it was made properly from the beginning. The appliances have been replaced with refurbished models from the Swiss house V-ZUG, and the faucet is a Toni from their Vintage Repair Shop . Every part of the kitchen has been chosen or renewed by the same principle: to carry quality forward rather than replace it.

The kitchen points towards a practice we are currently developing. A buy-back model in which previous kitchens and interior solutions are bought back, carefully restored and brought into new homes and new projects. Made to Return, as the project is called, is both the proof and the beginning of that practice.

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Guided tour

Would you like a personal walk-through of the exhibition and the showroom? We are happy to arrange a guided tour at a time that suits you. Please contact us to book.
mail@gardehvalsoe.dk +45 7022 2260