In the work of Louise Roe, design unfolds as a dialogue between sculpture and everyday ritual. Drawing from architectural observation, natural materials, and a background in fashion, Roe shapes objects that explore balance—softness with strength, ornament with restraint, the refined elegance of Art Deco alongside the geometric clarity of Bauhaus. Her Copenhagen gallery extends this philosophy into space, where vessels, furniture, and the presence of The Roe Bar create an atmosphere where design lives alongside food, conversation, and daily life. Guided by intuition and a sharp sensitivity to proportion and detail, Roe approaches each object as a way to bring harmony, vitality, and quiet beauty into the rhythms of the everyday.

Athena Kuang: Your work moves effortlessly between strength and softness, sculpture and function. When you first begin designing a piece, what feeling or idea are you trying to capture before form even takes shape?

Louise Roe: It is about the opposite attraction, like softness and strength and sculpture and function. For me, it’s about balancing the design. Having soft materials into raw materials and also about the beauty and the function. It is often the tough game in it.

I’m that kind of person that always wants to look at the bright side of life, not to be naive, but in terms of designing. I feel the design is as most important as it is when you have a really nice meal and you enjoy the food that has been made and cooked, and when you hear really nice music. You really feel life in many nice matters.

The same I had with design, because it’s like food for your eyes. What does it tell you?

Why can’t you build something beautiful? 

So it’s a balance for me, but maybe a little bit opposite of what you normally think of in Danish design, because I maybe put a little bit more deco into it.

AK: Your designs are inspired by the world around you. How do you translate natural observation into a beautiful design object? 

LR: I actually look at small details, often in architecture. It can also be something from nature, but the forms and shapes and small details on a corner of a window or how a handle is made and the shape of it and the proportions are very much my thing.

Often I know the measurements just without having a measuring tape. I have this feeling for when something is good together with something else. So shapes are really important and the proportions between everything.

I’m very visual. I’m from fashion school in the 90s where we just sketch by hand, everything. We were not into digital computer 3D renderings. So I draw a lot in my notebooks, but sometimes when I don’t have my notebook with me, I’m actually very good at doing a copy in my head, or just draw in the air and say I like this. I’m already kind of doing it in my head. I can sometimes just roll on something with my thinking and then I know that’s it. I remember like an elephant when I need to explain it to someone.

AK: You’ve cited Bauhaus, early Art Deco and even Haussmannian architecture as influences. How do these seemingly different traditions speak to each other in your creative process?

LR: I would say they are very strong decades of design and expressions. Bauhaus is very masculine and geometrical. Art Deco is a little bit more refined, a little bit more feminine. That is again about the balance of finding something feminine, masculine, and the balance of it makes it more harmonious.

It is kind of these two languages. It is like sweet and sour. Then some really nice taste comes through when you mix the opposite.

AK: How do you think your fashion background continues to shape your approach to materiality and form in design, particularly with furniture and sculptural objects?

LR: I would say my fashion background was also a lot about material and how they speak to each other. My fashion school was much more about concept, doing concept design, not commercial actually, and knowing about the production side as well. Sometimes it limits your creativity if you know too much about the production side because then you are limited into this and the cost might only be this and that. That is why you need to challenge sometimes the production side.

But I would say related to the fashion school about materials, that is the way I take this thinking into interior because I look at my whole gallery space like the whole collection needs to work together. It is not that I do something here that does not really speak to something else here. It has to be continuously designed. When I make a new object it still has to be combined with something from five years ago.

That is a good thing about interior that it actually grows by time. It does not discontinue because there is a new trend. Often a classic becomes a classic after five years or ten years.

AK: Louise Roe Gallery with The Roe Bar is more than a showroom, it’s a sensorial world. What experience do you hope visitors carry with them when they leave?

LR: I hope that they think I have made an effort. It is a Danish word that is very strong. They feel that you made an effort to do it as best as you can. They think this lady who created this place has made an effort to do it as best as she can. 

The gallery space is a huge space. It is not a little tiny cozy space. It needs bigger objects to fill the room. There is a high ceiling, so there is room for a relaxed feeling. People feel relaxed in here. There is room and we are not pressing people into small places.

Also the café, The Roe Bar, is included in the gallery space. For me it is very natural because I love food. Food is the key thing in life. Everyone gets happy when they taste something really good. Bringing that food scene into the gallery space and the interior is just like a home. You have a kitchen, you have a living room. It is a whole house. You cannot have a house without a kitchen.

AK: You talked about when people leave the space, you want them to feel that you made an effort. I wanted to ask how it feels to be the person imprinting your vision physically into the world with your designs and the spaces that you create, that your perspective is something to be preserved and acknowledged or even taken inspiration from?

LR: I am very proud of that when people speak nicely of what I have done, and people are really nice sometimes when they say, wow, have you created everything in here. Yes, I did.

People maybe do not expect that I go out and even sometimes in the café, if there is a little busy, I help out with them. Taking orders or clearing the table because I feel it is my kitchen. It is my home, so I want people to feel welcome.

But I am not doing it because I want a response from people. I just have this creative force. I cannot stop creating.

AK: Does designing a space like the Roe Gallery, where objects are lived with, sipped beside a coffee, contemplated slowly, change the way you think about individual objects?

LR: I am quite inspired by the space. It is a high ceiling room and a long room. It is almost thirty meters long and they have big windows to watch the street where people are walking. I need to see what will look good in this room. Sometimes I need to make two sizes because the bigger size is very suitable for the gallery space and the smaller size is more suitable for people’s homes. The biggest vase could be really great for a hotel counter or a bigger hospitality setup and smaller ones for residential homes. I often end up having more sizes of an object. I am definitely inspired by the gallery space.

AK: The Alice Display Bowl—your upcoming pedestal bowl explores classical Roman references through a softer, more contemporary lens. What drew you to reinterpret the language of the urn at this moment, and how do you see this piece bridging the ceremonial and the everyday within your universe?

LR: I would say the Alice Bowl has been made because it is also serving some vitality.

I call it Alice Bowl because my dog is called Alice. She is a little bit anxious but also a little bit like porcelain. You need to take care of this porcelain or else it will break.

This Alice Bowl is meant to be this fruit display vessel a little bit like the ancient amphora where you have these handles. The handles are for function but it is also something decorative.

I also thought about Alice in Wonderland because you will probably have fruit or something colorful. It will be something where you can display vegetables and all the beautiful shapes and colors that they have.

Because of springtime coming up here in Denmark. When spring comes everybody becomes very emotional about it. You can attach a lot of ideas and experiences to emotions. Often every season you crave something. I crave to see all the vegetables and fruit.

There are a lot of vegetables and fruit that you should not carry in your fridge. It should actually be on your counter. It is not good to put onions in your fridge but onions actually look really nice. Tomatoes lose taste if they come into the fridge. Bring them out. Bring this vitality. If you go to the supermarket the onions are not in the fridge. Bring them out and put them in the Alice Bowl. It is also about having this vitality and praising the vitality.

We have a little bit of a dark world with the wars and what is going on in the world. It is a little bit tight and harsh. We need some sparkle and vitality to keep life running. It is also some symbolic way of saying it with an object. It is a little bit similar to the Balloon Vase series I made because that is more for flowers and it has a little bit of the same language.Now we are talking about fruits and vitality.

AK: A lot of design today leans on nostalgia or trend. How do you ensure your work remains timeless without being stuck in the past? 

LR: I think colors are often timeless even though today there is a big color palette. You are allowed to do everything. But because I am using organic materials that come from nature like stone, wood, glass made of sand, ceramic and metal, these are natural materials. 

Nature never goes out of fashion. We always love to go to the forest. We understand the language of natural materials. My color palette is also often neutral and earthy. The Alice Bowl will be in porcelain in classic white porcelain. When you put fruit or vegetables in with natural colors it brings these colors anyway. That is my timeless approach.

Today we see so many things where you can see somebody has done something because of a trend. Real is about being yourself. Creating something timeless often comes from something real.