Scandinavian Furniture and Design
No open-access works for Scandinavian Furniture and Design are in the index yet. They will appear here as more collections are indexed.
About Scandinavian Furniture and Design
Nordic design rests on a social idea: beautiful, well-made things belong in every home. The Swedish writer Ellen Key argued it in Beauty for All (1899), and Gregor Paulsson's More Beautiful Everyday Things (1919) urged industry to take it up. By the 1930s the region had its own modernism, gentler than the Bauhaus. Alvar Aalto bent laminated birch into the Paimio armchair (1932) and set up Artek in 1935, and Bruno Mathsson shaped bentwood and webbing lounge chairs to the curve of a seated body.
After the war the touring exhibition Design in Scandinavia (1954–57) introduced North Americans to Danish teak, Finnish glass and Swedish ceramics. Tapio Wirkkala's glass for Iittala recalled melting ice and chanterelles, Ilmari Tapiovaara's stacking Domus chair (1946) furnished Helsinki student housing, and Norway's Peter Opsvik later designed the Tripp Trapp child's chair (1972). Look for pale timber, bent laminates and natural textiles.
The makers
Related artists.
Union des Artistes Modernes
Wiener Werkstätte
20th Century Furniture and Design
American Furniture and Design
American Mid-Century Design
American Studio Craft Movement
Art Deco Furniture and Design
Art Nouveau Furniture and Design
Arts and Crafts Movement
Brazilian Furniture and Design
British Furniture and Design
