2020 is a year of anniversaries. This year’s “spring” edition of the furniture fair is the 70th in a row, and Svensk Form, the world’s oldest design organization, celebrates 175 years in operation. In addition, several Swedish classics are celebrating anniversaries as well. Albin i Hyssna is 100 years old while Lammhults and Swedese each have turned 75 years old. And the youngsters, in this context, Klaesson Koivisto Rune, celebrate 25 years. For this year’s edition, Design and Contract was given larger areas at the expense of Home and Home Light. But it was not the larger areas but the new placement that made many things feel refreshingly new. This year’s furniture fair featured a lot to see and a lot to celebrate. In this newsletter I’ll share what I saw and experienced during this year’s design week. If you want to see more of the details, click on the pictures and they will open in a larger format. Enjoy!
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NEWSLETTER 30


A photographer presents Furniture & Light Fair in Stockholm

2020 is a year of anniversaries. This year’s “spring” edition of the furniture fair is the 70th in a row, and Svensk Form, the world’s oldest design organization, celebrates 175 years in operation. In addition, several Swedish classics are celebrating anniversaries as well. Albin i Hyssna is 100 years old while Lammhults and Swedese each have turned 75 years old. And the youngsters, in this context, Klaesson Koivisto Rune, celebrate 25 years.

For this year’s edition, Design and Contract was given larger areas at the expense of Home and Home Light. But it was not the larger areas but the new placement that made many things feel refreshingly new. This year’s furniture fair featured a lot to see and a lot to celebrate.

In this newsletter I’ll share what I saw and experienced during this year’s design week. If you want to see more of the details, click on the pictures and they will open in a larger format.

Enjoy!


Female traces

The collections at the Museum of Furniture Design (Möbeldesignmuseum) at Magasin 6 in Frihamnen in Stockholm currently feature more than three hundred designers. But only 20% of the objects are designed by women. Although Sweden has more qualified female furniture designers, 76% of Sweden’s professionally active furniture designers are men. With the exhibition, FEMALE TRACES, the Möbeldesignmuseum attempts to highlight women as creators of some of the most well-known objects in the furniture world. The exhibition runs until March 1.


Monster party and Gamla Riksarkivet open up

For the first time, the old national archives on Riddarholmen has opened their premises for an external exhibition. Two Japanese companies, 2016/Arita and Ariake, as well as two Danish companies, Le Klint and Friends and Founders, exhibited. On the stairs is Le Klint’s lamp no. 375. Can’t help but get the Milan vibe.

“We create more monsters than ever before. Scary? Not really! The monster is a symbol of the eternal battle between the opposing forces that take place in life and can easily be recognized in ourselves if we have the courage to open our eyes.”

Ten years ago, Marchel Wanders created his first Monster chairs. With a launch party in the Mooois Showroom, the expanded monster collection was on display – a new bar stool, a table and a rug.


Ettore is the winner of this year´s Born classic

Born Classic is a collaboration between the auction house Bukowskis and Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair. The prize for a future classic is awarded at the furniture fair each year. This year the winning table, Ettore, was designed by Åsa Jungnelius and produced by Källemo.

Ettore is a tribute to Ettore Sottsass’ artistic idiom of strong colors. Inside the glass plate is a dichroic film that breaks the light and gives different colors depending on the viewing angle. At the bottom of the triangle pillar is a painting by Åsa Jungnelius, which is projected in a kaleidoscope against the inner walls. The table is manufactured in a limited edition of 39 pieces, each with individual paintings.

The magazine, Form, named Ettore the winner of the Form Award 2020 in the category Furniture of the Year.


This year it is okay to screem

For a couple of years, the color scales have been clearly sober in tone. This year it is more like what sometimes happen in the fashion industry – everything is allowed (although it never really is). Remaining is the red scale with beige, pink and orange over yellow and the subdued green scale but it’s okay to venture all the way up to bright colors, especially in red and yellow. But there should always be color! Black and white only appear as complement colors on stands, handles etc.

All types of metals like chrome, copper and brass are gone. In general, wood widely dominates. New is to present wood featuring life. Raw plywood, uneven veneer showing structure and twigs as they are, as well as a mixture of all kinds of wood.

 


This year’s designers are Stefan Borselius & Thomas Bernstrand

But if you ask me, they have been some of the best for a long time. For many years, the duo has – individually and together – contributed some of the most compelling designs on the Swedish scene. But not until this year did the duo receive the Form magazine award as Designer of the Year. Congratulations! You are so worth it!

One of several new items at the furniture fair was their cocky chair series, Grand för Horreds (below).

 

I could have done that myself

This is something one often says about ingenious design, but only after having seen the finished work. Blå Station and Artek showed two “simple” and formidable new arrivals with the chairs, Still Life by Marcel Sigel (left) and Rope Chair, by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec (right).


Wästberg had the nicest booth

This year’s booths gave a good overview, they were open and easy to walk through. An exhibitor, who also had a well-balanced design language between the strictly angular and the floating round and light framing, was Wästbergs, which I think had the finest booth designed by Förstberg Ling.

Another nice booth, but the opposite of being open, was Bolon’s (below), designed by Snarkitecture in New York. Probably the most photographed booth as the many arches gave it a fantastic depth in different directions.

 


Rare pearls of light

Although Contract Light is a very small part of the furniture fair, there are pearls to be found. Like Haze by Samuel Wilkinson for Zero (top left). Around the globe is a custom-made 3D knitted stretched cover from Camira. The name Haze refers to the fading effect around the edge that is created when the light is gradually masked by the knitting as it wraps around the globe.

“This is not a sound absorber with LED lighting. It is a lamp with acoustic properties,” says Cutu Mazuelos and Eva Prego. They designed Trumpet (top right) for Abstracta. Trumpet has a solid wood core with acoustic filling consisting of recycled textiles and end-of-life PET bottles.

This tasteful fixture with a lengts close to 3 meter (below) is as yet unnamed. It is a prototype developed for Horreds’ booth by Stefan Borselius & Thomas Bernstrand and produced as a studio project by Ateljé Lyktan.

 


Really large tables get people together

This year, several major community tables appeared with dual functionality such as worktables and meeting tables. Here, the work team gathers for a joint breakfast and then continues to work together in the morning, then a feedback lunch followed by more meetings.

For Karl Andersson och Söner, Joel Karlsson has produced Woodwork, which is a whole table series from small café tables to the large community table. All are available in three heights: 730, 900 and 1,050 mm. The transition from the square leg to a narrower round foot is by purposely to prevents the knees from hitting a sharp edge.


Two products offer many solutions

Greenhouse is the department where design schools and not yet established designers showcase their prototypes for the industry. Here we see Flora, by Josephine Aspenrot, a freestanding dressing table where everything has its given place and is close at hand. Worth noting this year was that the nominations for Greenhouse’s “Best Performance” were based on material that had been submitted before the furniture fair opened. So good photos may be something to make time for after all.

Nordgröna are known for their sound-dampening panels of natural moss. This year, they presented their new cork panel, Saga, which is available in four different shapes and shades. With a patented bracket on the back of the panel, you can easily hang the to eachother and create a alot of different patterns.


Do not throw anything away and have a seat in a slim beauty

Anyone who has looked out of the airplane window during an approach will experience some déja vu. A mix of flowering fields and agriculture in a geometric diagonal puzzle. For Kasthall, Ellinor Eliasson has designed Flourish, which is manufactured entirely from leftover yarn from Kasthall’s standard production line. This makes each rug unique.

On the rug Flourish stands the chair Viva, designed by David Regestam at Wingårdhs and produced by Gärsnäs. With a width of only 610 mm and a comfort level like an armchair, it fits in many contexts. 5-star hotels require a chair and an armchair in each room. In smaller hotel rooms, Viva can handle both assignments. Or in restaurants and meeting rooms with limited space where you sit for a long time and need adequate comfort.

The parts are easy to separate and can easily be re-upholstered to extend the chair’s life cycle. It also provides great opportunity to change the character of the chair with different materials and colors. Viva is transported in two parts for efficient transport and is easily assembled on location.


Muffle sound everywhere

New products that muffle sound are still being developed on a broad front. 50 years ago, Danish architect and designer Verner Panton created the groundbreaking interior design for the German publishing house Der Spiegel in Hamburg. In collaboration with the Panton family, Offecct has now been given the privilege of reopening the Spiegel Panel acoustics panel according to the original design.

The pillar plays a pivotal role in architecture.With dB Pillar by Thomas Bernstrand for Abstracta, the pillars also have a sound-muffling function. The series consists of table-puffs and pillars of different heights. The pillars are available in several different versions; with whiteboard, with support for climbing plants, with newspaper holders, with flowerpots and with clothes hangers.


70 years with the furniture fair

The first furniture fair was held in 1951 at the S:t Erik Fair in Storängsbotten, Stockholm. Only Swedish producers and furniture dealers participated. Twenty years later, the furniture fair moved to Älvsjö, south of Stockholm, and has since grown every year at Stockholmsmässan. For a long time, the Copenhagen furniture fair was influential, but during the 1990s Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair took over the position as the leading exhibiton for Scandinavian design.

The furniture fair featured a special exhibition highlighting design classics from the 1950s to today. Common to the objects is that they are still in production despite all the new trends that have come and gone over the years.


Thanks, BAUX for the oysters and the champagne!

The next furniture fair in Stockholm is February 9-13, 2021. See you then!
Lasse Olsson Photo photographing and filming architecture, interior design, and lighting. My newsletter is published 6–8 times a year and presents photographed projects as well as reports from furniture fairs in Stockholm and Milan.

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