Klaus Nienkämper

Fifty years after establishing Nienkämper, its founder is as future-facing as ever.

- Katie Okamoto

“We were not very frivolous,” Klaus Nienkämper remarks in his understated way as he recalls his eponymous furniture company’s early days at NeoCon. Now celebrating its 50th anniversary (which happens to coincide with NeoCon 50), Nienkämper is known for products that embody timelessness, functionality, and a frugality of resources (read: sustainability) born of Klaus Nienkämper’s postwar childhood.

“I grew up after the war in Germany, and at that time, nothing was wasted,” he says. “Every little thing was used in some form or another, and we always had a history [of sustainability] in our company, long before it became fashionable, before clients asked for it.” (Today, the company’s 120,000-squarefoot factory in Toronto recycles 92 percent of its manufacturing waste.)

In Germany, the Nienkämper family owned an antiques business, but Klaus’s own tastes leaned more contemporary. “That’s why I went to Knoll,” he laughs. “I was trying to get away from the antiques as fast as possible.” After cutting his teeth as an apprentice at Knoll International in Germany, he worked in Finland for Asko and Finnish designer Tapio Wirkkala, then moved to Toronto in the 1960s.