Arne Jacobsen was born in Denmark in 1902. His mother was a bank teller with a hobby in painting floral motifs. Jacobsen wanted to pursuit a career in art but his father persuaded him to peruse a more secure career in architecture. As a student at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Jacobsen travelled to Paris to participate in the Art Deco fair of which he won a Silver Medal for his chair designs. While in Paris he found a fondness to the aesthetic of Le Corbusier then on a trip to Germany came across the works of Miles Van Der Rohe and Walter Gropius. It was through these influences that Jacobsen’s graduate piece won him a Gold medal. In 1941 as the darkness of World War II struck Europe, the Nazi race regime on Jewish Danes being sent to concentration camps meant Arne Jacobsen had to flee Denmark. Rowing a small boat, Jaconsen made it to Sweden where he would stay for two years.