Denmark is renowned for its outstanding designs. Most people have encountered Danish Design at some time or other, whether it’s Erik Magnussen’s Stelton thermos flask, Arne Jacobsen’s Ant Chair or Hans J. Wegner’s The Chair. The Chair shot to world fame overnight when it featured on the first TV duel between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy prior to the 1961 presidential election.

Design lovers will revel in a visit to Denmark. Bredgade, Copenhagen – the design street par excellence – would be one good place to begin your tour. You will find the Danish Museum of Art & Design at number 68. On the way there, you will pass the big auction houses, notably Bruun Rasmussen, and antique shops bristling with Danish furniture classics and Georg Jensen silverware.

The “Utopia and Reality” section of the Danish Museum of Art & Design is well worth seeing, with its realisation of 20th-century Danish furniture design. The exhibition is based on the museum’s own collection, the largest in Denmark. We follow the history of design from the avant-garde dream of a new and better world in the early 1900s, through to Børge Mogensen’s 1940s functionalist furniture for the people and on to the organic wave of the 1990s.

Some rooms are dedicated to heavyweights such as Kaare Klint, Poul Henningsen, Arne Jacobsen and Verner Panton. You might like to take an artistic break in the museum café, which is stylishly furnished with items by Hans J. Wegner and Poul Kjærholm; lunch is served on Ursula Munch-Petersen’s famous Royal Copenhagen Ursula dinner service.

Denmark’s furniture designers are not alone in having made an international reputation for themselves. When it comes to product design, Denmark is once again more than able to deliver brands with a long service life. Just consider such enduring names as Georg Jensen, Bodum, Holmegaard and Nilfisk, which even counts NASA among its clientele, for vacuum-cleaning space-ships. Or B&O, which will have its very own history section at Struer Museum when the museum re-opens in autumn 2007.

Royal Copenhagen has become almost synonymous with Danish Design. The porcelain factory, which dates from 1775, has a visitor centre at Søndre Fasanvej 5, Frederiksberg; please note that this will be relocating to Amagertorv in the autumn, though. Here, you can enjoy some history and take a look back at evergreens of porcelain such as the exclusive Flora Danica or the popular Blue Fluted dinner service, ever in demand. The museum also has film shows and a complete collection of Christmas platters dating back to 1908. If you’re a creative type, you can even pick up a paintbrush and take part in a taster session on painting porcelain. Do remember to book in advance, though.

The Danish Design Centre – housed in world-famous architect Henning Larsen’s high-tech building opposite Tivoli – puts on a variety of special exhibitions. The basement passage has been transformed into a veritable treasure-trove of fantastic Danish and international designs including the Vipp waste bin, Lego bricks and B&O hi-fi. Posing here, too, is the world’s first chair to be made from a single piece of plastic, by Verner Panton – the enfant terrible of Danish design.

While his colleagues in Scandinavia held onto the tradition of craftsmanship and noble woods, Panton playfully delved into the pop culture and plastic of the 1960s. With colourful lounge furniture and seating schemes at various levels, he shook the ordinary Danish family out of its comfort zone in the living-room and declared his sworn aversion to occasional tables.

If you go to Tivoli, be sure to have a look at Poul Henningsen’s garden lanterns. As one of the pioneers of Danish functionalism, PH gave form to the light and its practical, yet eminently elegant lampshade system. The 1949 Tivoli lanterns illuminate the amusement park at different points around the lake. The spiral-shaped shades are reminiscent of spinning-tops and the lamps were originally fitted with little motors so they could turn round.

PH’s familiar classics are suspended by and inside the Divan 2 restaurant. On your tour, we can also recommend taking in the lighting firm Louis Poulsen’s Showroom, which presents PH together with other Danish lamp makers on 700 m2 in pleasant Nyhavn.

There are magnificent panoramic views of Copenhagen from the Alberto K restaurant at the top of the legendary SAS Royal Hotel – the world’s first designer hotel. Arne Jacobsen designed every aspect of the hotel’s interior and exterior in 1960. In the restaurant, you can enjoy the gourmet menu with the original AJ cutlery, which was mass produced for Georg Jensen and resurfaced in Stanley Kubrick’s futuristic film “2001: A Space Odyssey” in 1968.

Only room 606 remains exactly as it was. In the lobby, however, you can still sink into the Egg chair, specially designed, like the Swan chair, for the Scandinavian skyscraper. At the time, its facade was widely regarded as too trendy, so the five-star hotel gained the reputation of being Copenhagen’s ugliest edifice, acquiring nicknames such as Hulkortet (“the punched card”).

Århus Town Hall, also designed by Arne Jacobsen in conjunction with the architect Erik Møller, arrived like a bolt of modernity out of the blue in 1941. The interior of the Town Hall was designed by Hans J. Wegner, and today it is a listed building and a highlight of Danish functionalism.

Arne Jacobsen fans flock to the Trapholt Art Museum, Kolding. This is a unique opportunity to visit the master’s very own holiday home. This architectural gem has served the Jacobsen family for generations at a beach on South Zealand, yet its existence was known only to an initiated few. The summer cottage, which made its debut at the 1970 tract house exhibition in Archibo, now boasts the most delightful views of Kolding Fjord. Visitors can look forward to an all-round experience of the great names in design. The interior was also designed by Arne Jacobsen. Inside, in the dining room and lounge, you will find Vola light fittings and the Cylinda Line dinner service.

Be sure to see Trapholt’s large collection of furniture, showcasing the best of Danish architects and designers down through time. The earliest items of furniture are by Kaare Klint and his pupils, who made a virtue out of good craftsmanship, while the newest part of the collection includes names such as Nanna Ditzel and Verner Panton.