Mogens Koch studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, from where he graduated in 1925. Until 1932 Koch then worked for Carl Petersen, Ivar Berntsen and Kaare Klint while also designing a buildable shelf system Byggereolen that today is seen as revolutionary for it's time and that has come to influence many danish furniture designers.
In 1932 Koch won a competition to design light furniture for churches, where his entry was a camp chair called MK 16 made of beech wood and canvas. Due to its design, the chair is often referred to as the director’s chair and wasn’t put into production until 1959 and then by Swedish Källemo and later by Danish Rud Rasmussen. In the 1930’s Koch also designed a stool in the same style and use of materials, called Interna by Carl Hansen & Søn.
As an architect, Koch is most known for the extension of the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Fredriksberg, together with Steen Eiler Rasmussun that was carried out between 1945 to -68. Koch also worked as an architect on church restorations such as the Roskilde Cathedral (1950-71) and on the Danish Church in London. For the churches Koch also designed organs and carpets, the latter together with his wife the textile designer Ea Koch (b. Edel Varming) that he had married in 1927.
From 1950 until 1968, Koch worked as a professor in architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In 1938 he received the Eckersbergs Medal and in 1963 the C.F.Hansen Medal. In 1990 Koch was awarded both the Danish Design Center’s Classic Award and the Denmark’s National Bank Anniversary Award.
Mogens Koch passed away in 1992, at the age of 94. He is represented at a.o. the Danish Modern Museum in Copenhagen, the Museum of Furniture Studies in Stockholm and at the Röhsska Museum of Craft and Design in Gothenburg.
