The following year, he founded Tegnestuen Vilhelm Lauritzen (today Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects).His study trips to Spain and Greece had a great influence on his later work, including his first major commission, the department store Daells Varehus, which was a competition he won in 1922 in asso-ciation with architect Frits Schlegel. 

His designs express a clear idea that spaces and shapes should last for generations. To fully appreciate how ground-breaking his architecture was, it should be viewed in context with his contemporaries. Architecture has long focused on the shapes and ornamentation of buildings.

Vilhelm Lauritzen’s approach was more one of usability. With his free thinking and focus on functionality, he created such simple, highly functional solutions that at first glance one risks overlooking his genius.

When Lauritzen began designing the first airport terminal in Kastrup, Copenhagen in 1936, commercial aviation was still in its infancy. There was no model for what an airport should look like. With his functionalist approach, he divided the building into an airside and a landside. The entrance and traffic along the building were situated towards the landside, while air traffic and gates were located along the airside. And today, this is still how the vast majority of the world’s airports are designed.

Another of Lauritzen’s most famous works is Radiohuset from 1945. Today, it is heritage listed as an internationally recognized total design, comprehensively conceived from the inside out – from furniture and door handles to its Modernist typology.

The building is one of the most accomplished examples of Func-tionalism, where the various functions, such as the foyer, con-cert hall, and offices, are recognizably represented in the shape of the building itself. The sound studios are designed as Chinese boxes, where walls and foundations are created with-out parallel walls to provide optimal acoustics and sound-proofing.

The building expresses a sense of timelessness and durability, and the detailing of the design is exceptionally dedicated. The façade is made of durable sandstone, whereas the interior is rendered in Greenlandic marble, brass, and teak hardwood, which still retains its beauty. This is also the case with the foyer ceiling where cowhide is stretched over mineral wool. Today, the corridors are still filled with music from the students of the Royal Danish Academy of Music. 

Lauritzen's Modernist talent also included interior design, where he created everything from door handles, ashtrays, and railings to lamps, sofas, and chairs. Several of the furniture pieces were designed in collaboration with architect Finn Juhl, who was employed at his design studio for 11 years, from 1934 to 1945. 

Vilhelm Lauritzen became a Knight of the 1st degree of Dannebrog and was awarded the Eckersberg Medal in 1941, the C.F. Hansen medal in 1954 and the Academic Architects’ Association Medal of Honour in 1964. He died in Denmark at the age of 90, in 1984.