Every design for Tønder

Step inside Det Gamle Apotek in December and you are in the biggest Christmas exhibition in Scandinavia. That is Tønder at its cosiest: a small town in the south-west of Jutland, close to the German border, where the old houses are lit up and the Christmas market fills the centre.

Kulturhistorie Tønder shows Hans J. Wegner's furniture in the town's former water tower. The town centre around it is lined with houses built when Tønder grew rich on lace, and street names such as Skibbroen recall the time before the dykes, when ships still reached the town. Tønder has been both German and Danish, and that mixed history is still part of daily life, with a German minority and a busy club life. In August the Tønder Festival brings folk and jazz music to town, and north of the centre the Zeppelin- & Garnisonsmuseum Tønder tells the story of the airship base that once stood there.

Whoever grew up between the marsh and the Vidå knows this map by heart: the festival tents, the lace houses and the bike ride home in the wind.