Stockholm Furniture Fair report

Interiors
 
There’s nothing like a trip to Sweden in February to remind one what a proper winter should be like. Crisp sunlight, a few inches of snow and beautiful Swedes aplenty: imagine Wham’s Last Christmas video recast with supermodels and you’re not far off. Sadly this year’s Stockholm Furniture Fair wasn’t quite so idyllic. Muggy temperatures and a persistent veil of drizzle kept the snow and Swedes off the streets.
But of course we don’t visit the fair simply to ogle the population, we go to take a long and studied look at the future stars of Scandinavian design, and these were certainly better than the weather. The most exciting things for us take place in The Greenhouse, which since 2003 has played host to independent designers and design graduates, handpicked by a panel of experts.


Designed like a model village by Stockholm-based TAF architects, The Greenhouse was refreshingly easy to peruse (the designers are young after all, so no 100-metre stands to wade through). The majority of the 21 exhibitors each showed a tight edit of exceptionally well-made prototypes, in the first instance proving sheer craftsmanship is well and truly alive in Scandinavian design schools.
The work that stood out revealed some rumbling trends that we’ll doubtless see more of later in the year: concrete cropped-up in unlikely scenarios (a delicate set of shelves by Fries & Zumbuhl), white enamel was virtually everywhere (classic, simple and beautiful in its uniformity by Josefin and Jonathan) and malleable use of wood and metal played a big part (Stokke Austad’s folded steel light). Hot pink splashed its way across many a stand too, though this is a trend we applaud a little less.
Of the more established brands, Michael Bihain’s leaning bookcase for Swedese was particularly pleasing (especially since we featured the prototype in our Salone design directory), as was Nola’s collection of outdoor goods in primary lacquered brights together with Sateyandra Pakhale’s satellite table for Offecct. Elsewhere Claesson Koivisto Rune’s Vass collection for Asplund showed the Swedish big guns on form and a coral deco mirror at Svenskt Tenn, reissued from Josef Frank’s original archive was worthy of a lingering glance, certainly prettier than the bedraggled reflection.
There’s been much discussion in critics’ circles of where design goes from here. With the current vogue of debate centering on design art and eye-catching, ostentatious furniture, it’s easy to forget that there’s plenty of very brilliant design being produced, by hand and machine, elsewhere. Stockholm might not have the glamour of Maison or the scale of Salone, but at its heart is a very strong, practical, beautiful and well-crafted design heritage. And against the global backdrop of loud and expensive, Scandinavian design has rarely looked so appealing.
12 February 2018 | Interiors