Peter Hvidt studied architecture at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts – The School of Design in Copenhagen from where he graduated in 1940. Two years later he founded his own architectural office, but in 1944 he was joined by cabinetmaker Orla Mølgaard-Nielsen, and the two of them worked together with interior architecture and furniture design until 1977.
Hvidt and Mølgaard-Nielsen worked mainly with industrially produced furniture, but they also designed pieces for several master carpenters in the Danish Snedkerlaugets Møbeludstillinger.
In 1945 they had their first exhibition together with Ludvig Pontoppidan but also worked together with A. J. Iversen, K. Thomsen, and Jacob Kjaer. The same year Hvidt and Mølgaard-Nielsen began designing furniture for export when the presented the Portex collection for producer Fritz Hansen, with pieces of a knock-down construction that could be shipped in flat packages to a low cost.
Together Hvidt and Mølgaard-Nielsen also designed furniture for France & Daverkosen and Søborg Møbelfabrik where their pieces for the later was well received by the contemporary public due to its use of teak and quality. Some of Hvidt and Mølgaard-Nielsen’s furniture were marketed by Illums Bolighus and sold in the USA.
Hvidt and Mølgaard-Nielsen participated in the annual exhibition of Snedkerlauget and at the Dansk Kunsthandverk exhibitions in Denmark as well abroad. They are represented at the Design Museum Denmark in Copenahagen, Nordenfjeldske Kunsindustrimuseum in Trondheim, Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery in Melbourne and the Museum of Furniture Studies in Stockholm.
Peter Hvidt passed away in 1986, at the age of 70.
