Scandinavian Design

Scandinavian design has its own timeless charm, which is handed down in time, but over time evolved, while remaining true to its spirit, its very essence.

Design industry insiders, as well as the critics of furniture industry, speak of it as a way of life, of feeling things before drawing or applying them in decorative objects or architecture buildings.

It is a particular style, it is recognized because it is a genuine and quality style, it is simple to the extent that this can be a style that comes from direct contact, both physical and mental, with nature.
It is a style that you recognize, you breathe when you go round the streets of Stockholm and other capital cities of the north, as well as in small towns.

However, in its simplicity, it always offers a touch of genius, some little insight, nothing particularly surprising, at least at first sight, but at a distance it clearly shows that quid that affirms strongly the unmistakable identity of this style among many.

That's why this is a winning design, overbearing in its simplicity, because it imposes itself as it captures the very essence of Man: his being a part of nature in which he lives.

This type of design is born without constraints, where this term means the directives of the market, of consumerism; nevertheless it dictates the law, because it becomes itself a design that makes, that creates trend. Let's discover its roots.

The Great Finnish Master Alvar Aalto played this philosophy of life as a constant tension towards balance. He was the one who, more than all, felt the need for harmony between man and nature, to counteract the unbalancing towards the extreme standardization and exasperated technologism. The needs of the individual become primary needs, to balance those of the mass society.

(...) There is another factor: the human scale, that is the correct size in everything we do. (...) It is an old dream that man can be master of the machines and not their slave, instead. (...) The great ideas are made of small details of life, they rise from the earth. Senses transfer to us the rough material from which then our thoughts arise.

(...) The very essence of architecture are change and growth, as in the organic world. This, ultimately, is the only true style in architecture.

These words were pronounced more than half a century ago, but they still well represent the spirit that underlies the basis of Scandinavian design, meaning it in all areas. If, in fact, the modern trend is the industrialized production, which also Aalto did not disdain, at the same time it must always contemplate the union between Man and Nature: the object of design is an open work, ready to adapt to the needs of the individual.

The choice of materials, for him, went hand in hand with the focus mainly on wood, of which Scandinavia is very rich; among artificial materials certainly the brick deserved the first place, of course for the architectural works in the strict sense.

About the wood, (...) and it is wood, with its specific character and the disposition of its fibers, that suggests me the future shape. (...) As a traditional material, wood can be used not only for construction purposes, but also for psychological and organic purposes.

His first creations of wooden pieces of furniture are those for the Paimio sanatorium, for which he entrusted to a joiner's workshop to produce prototypes of bentwood and compressed wood chairs that were washable while retaining the elasticity of the spring structures .

The tubular steel frame of Aalto's first works gave way to bent birch wood, without using steam, but by exploiting the characteristics of green wood.

Aalto's ideas do not remain so confined to a historical ended period. These are the same ideas taken today by modern designers, now appropriated ideas which distinguish the so-called Slow Design.

This is the way Design House Stockholm describe all this, some time ago: (...) we aim to preserve the original meaning of the design and focus on the process. (...), on the comfortable Scandinavian luxury, we confer great importance to the functionality of the objects from technical and emotional point of view.

Past and present meet in a continuum of thought without interruption, for a timeless art.

Special thanks for pictures to:

designmuseum

arch. Raffaella Pierri