Mogensen studied at the Copenhagen College of Arts and Crafts from 1936-38; then, from 1938-42, at the Furniture School of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where he was a student of Kaare Klint. He eagerly absorbed Klint's ideas and theories, and would incorporate them into his own work in later years.

From 1942-50, Mogensen served as head of design development for the Danish cooperative stores. The furniture he designed during his tenure was simple, utilitarian and clasically inspired; many of his pieces found their way into typical Danish homes as popular tastes came to embrace a modern aesthetic in the aftermath of the second world war. During this period Mogensen also served as a design consultant. He eventually opened a firm of his own in 1950, and began to explore the problems of storage in the modern home. He made a careful study of the average person's possessions, and calculated the amount of space required to conveniently store them. The result was his celebrated Boligens Byggeskabe storage system, designed to function as an integral part of an interior. Page 2 >