Axel Bender Madsen (1916-2000) qualified as a cabinet maker in 1936 and graduated from Kunsthåndværkerskolen in 1940. He went on to Kunstakademiets Møbelskole and worked for Kaare Klint and Arne Jacobsen, respectively, from 1940-1943. He was also employed in FDB's architect department as Børge Mogensen's assistant but from 1947 he established his own design studied together with Ejnar Larsen (1917-1987).

Ejnar Larsen and Bender Madsen were classmates at Kunsthåndværkerskolens Møbelskole from where Ejnar Larsen graduated in 1940. He then worked for master cabinet maker Jacob Kjær and architects Peter Koch, Mogens Koch and Palle Suenson. Ejnar Larsen also served as Statens inventarinspektør, as Hofinventarinspektør and assistant secretary in the Ministry of Housing and Building.

When master cabinet maker Willy Beck established his own business in 1946, he asked Ejnar Larsen and A. Bender Madsen to design for him. This was the beginning of a fruitful collaboration that lasted for more than 25 years and Beck was a skillful cabinet maker with a big, exclusive business in Classensgade furnished by the two architects.