A rose by any other name
It was Viggo Einfeldt's 13-year-old daughter who gave the bed its original name. She was inspired by Salmonsen's Lexicon and the goddess Juno, who is described as the divine protector of women's lives as wives and mothers.
Older generations remember the Sebra Bed as the 'Little Per Bed', as it achieved almost cult status in the popular Far til Fire films. In the early noughties the bed made a comeback and became the bed for new parents to have in their nurseries. The bed wasn’t in production at the time, so the original beds were in high demand on resellers’ websites.
The bed remains popular among parents-to-be. This is not only because of its functionality, but also because of the iconic look and beautiful design of the Sebra bed, as well as the reassurance that its proven quality gives parents.
Viggo Einfeldt
Viggo Einfeldt was an architect with his own design studio. As for architects such as Arne Jacobsen and Flemming Lassen, it was natural at the time to design furniture for the buildings they brought into the world. Viggo Einfeldt's business was a thriving one until the German occupation of Denmark brought most construction to a halt. The talented architect therefore had to think outside the box to save his business.
Viggo Einfeldt decided to develop a new children’s bed because no other bed on the market had taken child safety into account. Designing a new, and safe, high-quality product which was also beautiful and functional became Viggo Einfeldt's most important mission.
The bed that grows with the child
The bed became a carefully thought-out piece of high-quality design furniture. The shapes were round and child-friendly. The colours were pretty pastels, and there was another vital stroke of genius that made this beloved piece of furniture completely brilliant: Viggo Einfeldt designed a pull-out bed which could grow with a child from babyhood to their early teenage years, when the bed could become a sofa bed. The Juno bed therefore became known as the bed that grows with the child – a slogan which is hard to beat.
Sales were fast and it was difficult to keep up with demand, mainly due to perennial shortages of materials. Sales stopped in the 1950s, but Viggo Einfeldt's iconic masterpiece lives on today. The bed is listed in the ‘Children's Culture’ category of the Danish Cultural Canon, which consists of 108 works constituting the essence of Danish cultural heritage, Danish works of art and Danish design icons.