The Bang & Olufsen Centennial Celebration Showcases Its 100-year Intersection Between Sound, Design And Craftsmanship

With the JZ Club’s amber lights and simmering vibe, the mix of music, art, performance, and design offered the perfect backdrop for a party featuring top executives from Bang & Olufsen, including its CEO, Nikolaj Wendelboe. Joining in the festivities were a slew of celebrities and brand collaborators from China, such as global brand ambassador Gong Jun, musician Mavis Fan, architect Yong Ho Chang, designer Ximi Li, content creator He Tongxue, musician and producer Li Quan, and rock band Dada, alongside invited VIP guests, partners, and selected media.

“For a century, we have created iconic audio products that are defined by uncompromising standards,” Wendelboe said to the gathered guests. “But Bang & Olufsen is so much more than a company. It’s a culture where design meets vision, where motion and technology become art, and where music is not just heard, it’s truly felt.”

To represent its continual string of successes through the century, a jazz band took to the stage to play songs reminiscent of each decade, in sync with the star release of the decade by Bang & Olufsen. With Puttin’ On The Ritz came the Beolit 39, a creation by Peter Bang & Svend Olufsen and the first to bear the ‘Beo’ name. Ye Shang Hai, that sultry jazz standard that defined Shanghai in the World War II era, was accompanied by a visual of the electric B&O Shaver, an anomaly in the company’s product history caused by the war’s aftermath.

With each and every recognisable song came more and ever more impressive innovations: the exuberance of the 1990s and Hong Kong megastar Leslie Cheung’s Monica was paired with the equally iconic Beosound 9000, showcasing six compact discs in vertical fashion and requiring only 5.5 seconds to swap between the discs.

For a brand with beginnings half a world away in Struer, Denmark, the foundational philosophies and enduring qualities have enabled Bang & Olufsen, as Wendelboe described, to “build its success through generations of craftsmanship and timeless design”.

“Heritage becomes powerful when it evolves,” Wendelboe said. “And there is perhaps no better place to celebrate that evolution than here in Shanghai. This remarkable city represents the meaning of past and future, tradition and bold innovation. It is dynamic, creative, and globally influential, much like the spirit we embody as a company.”

Just steps away from the JZ Club, the nine-day centennial exhibition took place on the grounds of, and within, a century-old space in the historical Sheng Garden. The exhibition’s Chinese title, “百年拂声 (Fu Sheng: Tracing the Sound)”, set the tone with quiet Danish aesthetics presented via a staggering range of Bang & Olufsen innovations, both past and present.

Through six distinct rooms, the exhibition brought visitors through its product highlights that began in 1925 with the engineering expertise of Peter Bang. It was Bang who returned to Denmark with expertise gained working at a radio factory in the US. In Struer, Bang then collaborated with his friend Svend Olufsen, using the attic of their manor house to experiment with their first invention. That breakthrough would arrive a year later with the Eliminator, a resolution to the heavy, expensive batteries that characterised radios of that era. The Eliminator proposed that the radio be plugged in and draw power from the mains, a novel idea which then introduced many more households to the radio.

With Olufsen’s creativity, artistic sensitivity, and business acumen allied with Bang’s engineering nous, the business began to fulfil its potential with the launch of new models that adhered to the twin objectives of function and form. In 1930, the Four Lamper radio concealed all the controls on its side panels, while the 1939 Beolit drew inspiration from 1930s Buick cars, with a Bakelite case that diverged from the commonly used wooden cabinets.

Although the interregnum of World War II hampered the company’s progress (pro-Nazi saboteurs burnt down its factory because the management refused to team up with them), Bang & Olufsen rose from the ashes—first with electric razors, and then firmly back on track with radiograms, radios, and televisions.

Across the mid-century, the themes of purity and rationality in the design language became entrenched in Bang & Olufsen—something, as Wendelboe points out, that would make the brand unique. “Beautiful sound comes when we think about materials that have sustainable value, design that you want to have in your home for decades, and a product that delivers an emotional experience,” he said.

Later success, with designers such as David Lewis for the Beovision and Beosound 9000, and Jacob Jensen for the Beomaster 1900, would see Bang & Olufsen enter The Museum of Modern Art in New York’s permanent collection.

At this exhibition in Shanghai, the Titan & Alchemy room reimagines the origins of Struer—where sheep roam across open fields—in a contemporary landscape with two unique limited editions, namely the Beolab 90 Titan and the Beolab 90 Alchemy. The former showcases sandblasted volcanic rock particles, with surrounding aluminium curving around the subwoofers. Meanwhile, the Beolab 90 Alchemy exists as 50 numbered pairs with 24k gold-plated elements, bronze mesh covers, and walnut wood details. It is a product of the 2025-launched Atelier Bespoke, where master craftsmen in Struer work with the client on deeply personal and customised pieces.

If there is one clear narrative from Bang & Olufsen’s centennial exhibition in Shanghai—with more to come across the region in due time—it is the brand’s constant innovation and creativity, from its precision aluminium work to its recently concluded partnership with the Scuderia Ferrari team. “In the exhibition, you experience connected chapters of bold ideas, creativity, and technological excellence. A journey through time. A daily story of imagination and craftsmanship. Where innovation turns vision into something timeless,” Wendelboe said. “And, yet, a story only becomes meaningful when it continues to unfold.”