The scene was set when, on the final approach to Stockholm, the Captain announced that the city was ‘enjoying’ heavy snow and a temperature of minus 15 degrees C. Can the fair organisers be persuaded to move future events to balmy June? Probably not. But of course, everything works perfectly despite the weather, and interiors everywhere are beautifully warm.
Stockholm is a fiercely proud and uncompromising place with little in the way of pandering to international tastes. Luckily, the city is easy to navigate with excellent public transport systems – aside from some dubious taxi companies – the people are charming and friendly, and the food is heart-warming and delicious.
The Show
It’s a sad fact but the word ‘design’ has become one of the most overworked in the English language – as much in the area of commercial interiors as anywhere. Manufacturers of the most poorly conceived products make outrageous claims of design quality, cliché-ing the word to the detriment of the outstanding.
The Stockholm Furniture and Light Fair is part of a 200-event Stockholm Design Week fest where visitors can immerse themselves in Scandinavian design of the highest quality. There is probably nowhere else in the world better entitled to host such an event, as evidenced by the way, particularly in recent years, manufacturers around the world, led by the architects, have adopted with varied levels of success their design styles and culture.
Unlike some exhibitions of its type, this show should be “do-able” in a day. It is compact, with only three halls and about 300 exhibitors. However, the sheer quality of so many of the displays and presentations stop visitors in their tracks and makes progress around the show much slower and more rewarding than is true for most exhibitions.
Billed as a furniture and light fair, the exhibits represent many product categories from furniture, furnishings, lighting and accessories for all types of homes, offices, contract and outdoor areas. Strictly speaking, only 55 companies claimed to show office furniture, but nowadays, the blurring of the lines between furniture for the office and the home mean that many more companies’ products than in the past now have commercial relevance.
Some of the most interesting furniture was from surprising areas. Fuhr Home products were designed in Denmark but produced in India. Softrend were from Estonia and showed some beautiful modern upholstery. Other companies, such as Gazzda were from Bosnia, and others came from Lithuania, Latvia and Croatia displaying some fine craftsmanship and beautiful and innovative styling.
Trends
Nowadays, many of the larger European industry groups – such as Kinnarps, EFG, Flokk, Martela and Isku – are Nordic-based, and their product portfolios are increasingly influenced by an outward, international view. This can lead to blandness, trying to please everyone, rather than promoting their home design cultures which once set them apart from other corporate multinationals. This show demonstrated that the smaller, design-led companies, presenting uncompromisingly Nordic designs that you either love or hate – mostly love – were boldly seizing the initiative from the larger groups with their watered-down aesthetics. Some of the majors hardly showed any products at all on their large, extremely expensive stands, as it trying to hide their heritage.
This is not a show you visit to learn about trends in either working practices or product technology, mechanical or electronic. There were sit-stand tables, hubs, booths and enclosures, but they were not the focus of the show. The emphasis was on employing traditional craftsmanship and using beautiful materials to create modern working environments. It’s as if the mechanics of the way people work in offices are decided elsewhere, and the role of the makers who show here is to show that new ideas can be realised while embracing attributes such as aesthetics, environmental issues, craftsmanship and the tactile nature of products.
As one would expect, there was a very strong emphasis on natural materials with wood and wool featuring heavily. Although veneers were seen, solid oak, walnut and birch were widely used. Artificial finishes such as lino, laminates and treated MDF were also on display. Colours coordinated earthy shades of greys, browns and greens.
The Companies and Their Products
(See our Gallery of photos, below)