In the world of chemistry the symbol ‘pH’ stands for ‘potential of hydrogen’. In the world of design, the same two letters stand for the Danish designer, academic, architect, writer and all-round polymath Poul Henningsen (1894-1967). Funnily enough, both abbreviations refer to explosives.
Poul Henningsen presented his first piano to the world in 1931. It was an extraordinary design with eye-popping tracery, concave legs, and a clear celluloid lid which was curved so that people wouldn’t be able to litter the surface with photos, knick-knacks and domestic detritus. In 1937 he introduced another revolutionary shape of piano with a lid which looks something like the Sydney Opera House, and which is bored with sound holes looking something like portholes. With both instruments he was aiming to light a firework under the staid worlds of piano design and domestic furniture, and create some sparks. Explosive indeed.
He achieved his aim. No-one who has seen a PH piano is ever likely to forget it. And this is where we skip forward a few years to 2009, and meet Søren Vincents Svendsen (pictured above), who is now the founder and CEO of PH Pianos. In that year a friend of his needed some cash, and offered to sell Svendsen his old PH piano (it was one of the 1931 models). Svendsen couldn’t play the piano himself,
