Karen Clemmensen
Karen Clemmensen (née Mundt; 31 December 1917 – 21 December 2001) was a Danish architect and designer. The firm she set up with her husband Ebbe designed both traditional and more modern Functionalist buildings. Often inspired by Japanese and American trends, their work includes Kildeskovshallen in Gentofte and LO-skolen in Helsingør. Early life Karen Clemmensen was born in Copenhagen to an artistic family. Her father Holger Mundt (1887–1957) was an architect and her mother Harriet Fischer-Jørgensen (1889–1975) a painter. After completing her schooling at Sønderborg Statsskole in 1935, she attended the Danish Academy until 1942. From 1939 to 1941, she worked part-time for Kaj Gottlob, also a successful architect. Career While at the Academy, the pair met Eva and Nils Koppel and Tobias Faber who found work for them in a Stockholm studio during the war years. It was here they came in contact with Japanese architecture, including the Zui Ki Tei teahouse in the Ethnographic Museum, which influenced many of their later projects. After the birth of her first child in 1945, Eva Koppel worked for the city architect while setting up her own firm with her husband. For the first 10 years, there were no major projects. In