Danish immigrant Jens Bruun created the Scan Design furniture store chain in the 1960s with his wife Inger. They introduced countless Pacific Northwest families to mid-century modern ideals in chair design and more. These experiences inspired Jens to establish a foundation later in life to support Danish-American relations, scientific research, arts, and culture. The Scan Design Foundation continues the Bruuns's philanthropic work in the Northwest in the twenty-first century.
Business Mentor
While Jens Bruun never achieved more than a grade school education, he often pointed to the number of young Danes that he helped start in business. Assisting them to overcome the challenges that he faced as the poor son of a farmer, an immigrant, and fledgling business owner was one of his passions. This dedication to helping others formed the basis of the foundation that he started in the last months of his life.
Bruun and his wife Inger founded Scan Design Furniture, which first brought mid-century modern Danish furniture to Bellevue and expanded over the decades to include nine stores in Washington and Oregon as well as an outpost in Hawaii. In 2002, Jens left his estate to the Scan Design by Inger & Jens Bruun Foundation, which has carried on the couple's earlier charitable work in advancing Danish-American relationships, funding scientific research, and supporting public art and culture projects. In more recent years, the foundation has worked to highlight the impact of climate change by supporting sustainability projects.
Opportunity in North America
Originally from Stenderup, Denmark, Jens was born on May 1, 1933. In 1940, Denmark was invaded by Germany and remained under Nazi occupation until the end of the war. While the country avoided the devastation of other areas of Europe during the 1940s, the lagging economy in the 1950s left many looking for opportunities outside of the country. In 1957, Jens met Inger Berg (b. 1935) at a celebration for her parents’ 25th wedding anniversary. They married in the same year and immigrated to Canada. For Jens's family, this would be at least the second time that a Bruun had tried to make his fortune in North America. Research has shown that his father Jacob Petersen Bruun tried farming in Iowa for a brief period in the 1930s. When a family member left Jacob farmland near Stenderup, he returned to Denmark. Apparently Jens's desire to modernize their farm operations in the 1950s by purchasing a tractor led to arguments. Unable to share the farm in Stenderup comfortably, he and Inger left home to try life abroad.
In a 1975 interview with Seattle Times business columnist Boyd Burchard, Bruun said that he was inspired by his father’s tales of life in 1920s America. "My dad could never talk about anywhere else. It smites you. All those stories from when you’re a small boy up. And some of us have to take the adventure ourselves" ("Some Have to Take ...").
Jens and Inger left Denmark in 1957. They worked on three different farms in Alberta, Canada. Jens also found construction work in the winter. With $500 saved up, the couple bussed around Canada and the United States looking for a place to settle. During this trip, they met Seattle-based stone mason Erik Bartrand, a Danish American citizen, who offered to sponsor them.
The Bruuns went back to Denmark for a time to help care for Jens's father Jacob. Then they returned to Victoria, British Columbia, and applied for immigration papers. By 1961, they were able to move to Seattle. Jens worked laying bricks for Bartrand and worked for another Danish American contractor, Tom Paulsen. Inger found jobs in Seattle. In later years, Jens would describe them as suddenly flush with cash and living the life that they had dreamed about in Denmark.
Open in Bellevue
Financially sound, the Bruuns purchased their first house in the Green Lake neighborhood. Eventually Jens found employment at a local furniture store owned by a Norwegian and, according to Burchard's story, was fired from the position for making a number of business suggestions that weren’t appreciated. However, this experience in the furniture industry spurred other ideas. The Bruuns took out a loan with the help of the Small Business Administration. They opened their own furniture store in "a 20-by-50 former post office on Main Street" in Bellevue by 1964 ("Some Have to Take ...").
The Bruuns soon discovered that the burgeoning mid-century modern craze for well-crafted Scandinavian furniture aligned well with their ambitions. The couple focused on quality design and higher-end furniture for the Scan Design stores as they expanded.
A Seattle Post-Intelligencer article on a Danish design exhibition in 2001 noted the furniture designers led the way in crafting comfortable and durable furniture in the 1950s and 1960s. "Credit Denmark with changing the way we sit. The body-friendly chairs its designers and craftspeople began designing and producing in the 1950s and 1960s have prompted people all over the world to linger at dining tables, sit up a little straighter in workplaces, and make public spaces like airports and lobbies more tolerable,” noted writer Susan Phinney when reviewing the "Danes on the Move" exhibition held at Scan Design Furniture’s Lynwood store in 2001 ("Hot Danish ...").
Sponsored by the Danish government, the traveling exhibit of chairs featured the latest generation of Danes who design furniture, successors to the successful mid-twentieth century Scandinavian furniture designers. Interviewing Bruun for her article, Phinney called him one of the "pioneer furniture importers" of the region. Bruun said that "Americans who were in Europe during and after the war got to know and appreciate Danish craftsmanship" ("Hot Danish ..."). This receptive audience made chairs designed by Hans Wegner bestsellers at Scan Design stores for more than 40 years.
A fan of new designers as well, Bruun touted the young "Danes on the Move" in 2001 for their innovations in creating high-tech chairs of leather and steel or twisting a single piece of wood to form both the front and back legs of a chair. His general manager, Ray Mahan, also related how Bruun had a refined sense of what people would like. "Jens definitely had an eye for beautiful furniture pieces," said Mahan after the "Danes on the Move" exhibition. Bruun's knowledge of furniture seems to have been completely self taught. Another business partner, Ken Anderson, remembered his friend spending long hours at furniture fairs and touring factories overseas.
The headquarters of the chain remained in Bellevue throughout Bruun's life. In 1973, the company moved from 10328 Main Street to a much larger facility at 10515 NE Sixth Street. This new building had two showrooms as well as offices and was designed by Richardson Associates. The business grew into multiple locations in Washington, Oregon, and Hawaii. The builder Tom Paulsen of Clyde Hill, a fellow Dane and earlier employer of Jens, constructed several of the stores including the Bellevue headquarters. It was part of a pattern of hiring local Scandinavians or bringing people from Denmark to work in the stores.
A People Person
Scan Design Furniture’s last CFO Bob Thompson and longtime friend/business partner Rob Harris both remember that Bruun liked to chat with customers, suppliers, and nearby business owners in Bellevue. He would hold informal meetings in the showroom, often wandering into the area displaying dining room sets, grabbing a chair, and encouraging discussions around the tables there. As the business grew, he and Inger worked on introducing Danish culture and Danes to the region in more ways than simply selling Scandinavian furniture. Inger was involved in the 1969 Danish Festival at the Seattle Center, sharing Danish recipes with a Seattle Times columnist and cooking breakfast treats to hand out to participants.
In 1971, the Bruuns welcomed the first Danish trainee into their home and business. Over the next three decades, the couple would provide 147 trainees with the opportunity to experience life in the United States while gaining valuable work experience at their store.
Their championship of Scandinavian design was often touted in local newspapers. In 1974, Jens received the Danish Enterprise Award at a dinner given by Consul General H. A. Djurhuus for "outstanding achievements in commercial relationships between Denmark and an overseas area." In the later article by Boyd, Bruun would credit Inger as his "partner" in the business and co-recipient of the award ("Some Have to Take ...").
In a 1977 story about the visit of Danish designer Niels Otto Moller to the region, the host was noted to be Jens Bruun, who carried all seven versions of Moller’s chairs in his company including the famed Embassy Chair selected for use by the U.S. Embassy in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. Two years later, the Bellevue headquarters would host "Danish Design for American Homes," co-sponsored by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Seattle Times columnist Walt Evans wrote in 1977 that Bruun asked famed local restaurateur Victor Rosellini if he could bring his own table to a dinner at the Four-10 that he was hosting for another visit by Djurhuus. Rosellini agreed and Jens sent the table and someone to assemble it in the Four-10 library. Evans doesn’t note the provenance of the table, but one must assume that it was probably a Danish design.
Promoting Danish Culture
The Bruuns would continue to work with both local and Danish contacts to mount exhibits pertaining to Danish culture and history. When the Nordic Heritage Museum had the opportunity to bring "The Dream of America: The Immigrant Experience, 1840-1920" to Seattle from Denmark in 1985, the Bruuns provided financial support and more. The exhibition was originally designed for an open-air museum in that country, attracting more then a half million visitors. The Bruuns were cited by the museum’s publications as a driving force behind bringing the project to the United States. Jens had his Scan Design team help install the 8,000-square-foot exhibition in the museum’s original location at 3014 NW 67th Street in Seattle. The exhibition opened in June 1986 and depicted early Nordic immigration to America. Opening ceremonies included Eigil Jorgensen, the Danish ambassador to the United States; Seattle Mayor Charles Royer; Jean Gardner, wife of then governor Booth Gardner; and other local officials. It proved a hit as well in Seattle, attracting more than 20,000 visitors in its first six months.
Seattle was the only U.S. city where "The Dream of America" was exhibited. After the exhibition closed in December, parts of it were incorporated into the museum’s permanent exhibition with the Old World parts of the displays left on the first floor, and the individual treatments of Nordic ethnic group moved to the top floor of the museum. Prior to closing their original location and moving to the building at 2655 NW Market Street, the museum remounted "The Dream of America" in 2014-2015 and a video tour of it during this period can be found online at nordicmuseum.org. For this and continuing support of the eventual creation of the National Nordic Museum, the current museum’s Nordic America gallery is named in honor of Jens and Inger Bruun.
Passages
Inger Bruun died unexpectedly at home on June 5, 1987. Jens continued operating his businesses, expanding his garden at their home in Medina, and enjoying boating trips with friends. But business always came first and he traveled extensively to find new furniture designs. Even in the last year of his life, he was scouting the furniture fair in Cologne, Germany. He was often described as a workaholic. Bob Thompson noted his boss would work a full day at the store than go home to communicate with business partners and follow up opportunities in Europe. Another friend remembered him going through the furniture fairs from opening until past midnight every day.
While at his home in Aalborg, Denmark, Bruun was diagnosed with cancer and treated in Denmark. By the time of his death on April 10, 2002, he was listed as the owner of the Scan Design furniture chain, a furniture manufacturing facility in Denmark, and having part interest in Pacific Market International of Seattle. He was buried in Øster Lindet Church Cemetery next to his father Jacob Petersen Bruun (1903-1960) and his sister Ingrid Marie Andersen Bruun (1935-2004).
Legacy and Foundation
With no children to inherit his estate, Bruun proposed the creation of a foundation to his friends just weeks before his death. The Scan Design by Inger & Jens Bruun Foundation came together very quickly, recalled Rob Harris, with a few international phone calls and visits. There wasn’t much time to discuss his goals with Bruun, whose health declined much faster than expected after his diagnosis. So the founding board members, which included Harris and Thompson, as well as Mark Schleck and Tage Christiansen, sketched out a foundation that would, first and foremost, advance Danish-American relationships. After that, projects were reviewed on the basis of "Would Jens approve?" They also used both Jens's and Inger's name equally, mindful of the fact that Jens often said that he had only one wife and he wanted her to be remembered as well.
The Bellevue headquarters was sold; developer Kemper Freeman paid $11 million for the land and building, and Scan Design moved north to a newly constructed building in Lynnwood. With this and other assets from the estate, Scan Design Foundation grew to $30 million. The sale of the Eugene, Oregon, property also benefited the foundation and its mission in 2017. "Essentially we had $45 million to fund what Jens wanted," Thompson said. Early grants included scholarships to bring Danish students to the University of Washington and send American students to Denmark, an easy call back to the Bruuns's support of Danish trainees in early years of the business. This initiative became known as the Scan|Design Fellowship. It enabled more than 2,300 American and Danish students and interns to participate in programs at the University of Washington, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Oregon, Portland State University, and Bellingham Technical College by the early 2020s.
In addition to student fellowships, the foundation supported numerous art and cultural exhibitions including the public art installation of six trolls throughout the Northwest. Built by Danish artist Thomas Dambo, the "NWTrolls: Way of the Bird King" features five giant hand-built troll sculptures located on Bainbridge Island and Vashon Island, in the Seattle neighborhoods of West Seattle and Ballard, and in Issaquah. A sixth troll was installed in Portland, on the campus of Nordic Northwest. All trolls were located in spots that were free to access. "NWTrolls: Way of the Bird King" was built to encourage discovery of the region and illustrate real-life lessons of environmental stewardship. All sculptures are made primarily of recycled materials including wooden pallets (commonly used for importing goods through the region).
The ambitious public art project reflects not only the Scan Design Foundation’s mission to support Danish-American relations but also brings a new focus on environmental sustainability. Once again the board and current [2024] Scan Design Foundation president Fidelma McGinn asked, "What would Jens like?" Remembering his agricultural background and deep love for gardening, shifting some funds to projects to help promote Denmark’s innovations in sustainability to American audiences seemed perfect. The foundation continues to advance Danish-American relations through the exchange of people, ideas, and cultural experiences – just as Jens and Inger Bruun would have wanted.
