Savior by passion

Jacob Gubi revisits old design treasures and transforms today's designs into tomorrow's classics. A timelessly beautiful family story.

Jacob Gubi is not satisfied with standards - he prefers to set them himself. Together with Danish-Italian design duo GamFratesi, he outfitted Copenhagen's gastro-temple "The Standard," which Noma chef Claus Meyer and jazz pianist Niels Lan Doky opened in a former customs station. "Stine Gam and Enrico Fratesi have fantastic energy, I love working with them," Gubi says. And in his quiet way, that's almost a declaration of love.

"When they got the order for the restaurant, we only had the prototype of the 'Beetle Chair' ready. But we didn't want to pass up the opportunity." So Jacob Gubi cranked up production and managed to fill the Art Deco building on the harbor with a whole bevy of light and blue-gray "Beetles" in less than three months. The Dane was born with ambition and an entrepreneurial spirit: In 1967, the year he was born, his parents Gubi and Lisbeth Olsen started a company; they bought aluminum boxes at a grocery store, had them colorfully painted and resold them. "A simple idea," Jacob Gubi says, "in the Sixties, everyone wanted colors around."

The big crawl: GamFratesi's "Beetle Chair" as a sofa - with velvet cover in rust red, 3329 euros via gubi.com.

The business thrives, Gubi Olsen designs upholstered furniture and continues to expand the product line. "I came home from school, took orders and packed products - it was a fun time," recalls Jacob Gubi, who prefers to be addressed by two first names rather than his last. One day, his father discovers a floor lamp in a Copenhagen shoe store: He tells his son about it, takes him to London and eventually ends up in a run-down factory in Birmingham.

"For the family, she was the ugly duckling of the collection. But we liked her very much."

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