Bodil Kjær – FORM PORTFOLIOS

Bodil Kjær

The Essentialist

Architect Bodil Kjær lived her life around the globe. From 1955–63 she developed a series of elements of architecture before becoming a teacher, researcher and professor.

Educated in Denmark, England and the USA, Bodil Kjær (1932) practised as an architect, designer and planner from her own offices in Copenhagen and London. Before becoming a tenured professor at the University of Maryland, Bodil Kjær worked for many years in teams of engineers, sociologists and organization planners to create healthy and flexible work environments for employees in factories, offices and universities.

Bodil Kjær is well known for her emphasis on user involvement in the planning process, which she practised with engineers at Arups in London for Oxford and Cambridge universities, for Penguin Books and for IBM in England, and with Italian engineers for among others Alfa Romeo, Rank Xerox and the government of the region of Lombardia. Kjær was later invited to lecture on her work and to teach architecture students in Denmark and England and as a visiting professor at architecture schools in the USA, ending up teaching full time and immersing herself in research problems of architecture, some of which was later published in Cambridge, Paris, London, Washington and Boston.