May 27, 2026 · 30 min · 10 segments
You find Dinesen wood floors in museums, flagship stores, restaurants, galleries and historic buildings around the world. But what is it about these extraordinary timber planks that architects love so…
Hans Peter DinesenGuestMichael BoothHostAs Hans Peter explained when I met him first at our studio in Copenhagen, the root of Dinesen as the architect's favorite floor makers began with a chance encounter between two eminent British architects back in the 1990s.
I think that's probably the biggest transformation of the company, meeting, uh, the English architect John Pawson in the early '90s.
Before that it was more a local sawmill providing timber for, for local buildings and mostly historical houses, churches, manors, and, uh, castles in, uh, in Denmark.
So did, did, did John Pawson find you or did you find him? How did that connection come about?
And John told me a story once that, uh, a fellow architect came by the building site in Notting Hill, uh, with a sample.
Uh, and he had this sample, uh, that he somehow got a, a, a hold of, and it was a, a sample of Douglas fir from, from Jels Sawmill.
And, um, John Pawson saw this piece of wood and he fell in love because it reminded him of his travels in, in Japan.
He fell in love in, with the dimensions also because it was - he told me that the sample was 15 meter long, but I guess that's-
As Hans Peter explained when I met him first at our studio in Copenhagen, the root of Dinesen as the architect's favorite floor makers began with a chance encounter between two eminent British architects back in the 1990s.
I think that's probably the biggest transformation of the company, meeting, uh, the English architect John Pawson in the early '90s.
Before that it was more a local sawmill providing timber for, for local buildings and mostly historical houses, churches, manors, and, uh, castles in, uh, in Denmark.
So did, did, did John Pawson find you or did you find him? How did that connection come about?
And John told me a story once that, uh, a fellow architect came by the building site in Notting Hill, uh, with a sample.
Uh, and he had this sample, uh, that he somehow got a, a, a hold of, and it was a, a sample of Douglas fir from, from Jels Sawmill.
And, um, John Pawson saw this piece of wood and he fell in love because it reminded him of his travels in, in Japan.
He fell in love in, with the dimensions also because it was - he told me that the sample was 15 meter long, but I guess that's-
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
