- 1902 Born in Copenhagen
- 1924 Enrols as an architecture student at the Royal Academy of the Arts in Copenhagen
- 1925 Wins a silver medal for a the Paris Chair at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris where he discovers Le Corbusier’s work
- 1927 Visits Berlin where he sees the architecture of Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe. Wins a gold medal on graduating from the Royal Academy
- 1930 After years of designing private houses as a young architect, Jacobsen wins his first public project to modernise the beach at Bellevue
- 1935 Completes the groundbreaking Bellavista apartment blocks, now regarded as a classic of the Danish modern movement, in Klampenborg
- 1935 Designs the controversial Stelling Hus building in Copenhagen
- 1943 Begins two years of wartime exile in Sweden where he concentrates on textile and wallpaper design and a summer house for two doctors
- 1945 Returns to Denmark in peacetime to spend several years working on housing and schools.
- 1950 Starts a five year project to design the Søholm series of houses in Klampenborg, which mark the start of a looser, more experimental phase.
- 1951 Inspired by Charles and Ray Eames’ furniture, Jacobsen designs the moulded plywood Ant Chair, later refined into
- 1955’s best-selling Series 7.
- 1956 Designs two upholstered chairs – the Egg and Swan – for the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen as well as the stainless steel cutlery later chosen by Stanley Kubrick as a prop in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
- 1960 Wins the commission to design St Catherine’s College, Oxford. He insists on designing the fixtures, fittings and garden as well as the buildings.
- 1961 SAS Royal Hotel opens in Copenhagen as the apogee of Jacobsen’s ambition to design a building in its entirety down to the smallest fixtures.
- 1964 The futuristic Belvedere Restaurant opens in Hannover above an early 18th century garden. Jacobsen begins a three year collaboration with Stelton, run by his foster son Peter Holmblad, on the Cylinda Line cocktail kit
- 1966 Jacobsen wins the competition to design the new National Bank of Denmark headquarters in Copenhagen. Construction continues after his death with the building opening in 1978.
- 1971 Arne Jacobsen dies in Copenhagen
