Due to its distinctiveness and avant-garde profile, the design of the Nordics (Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland) has always been an international reference: the technical and formal cleanliness inherited from the masters is now accompanied by an extreme focus on sustainability. In the Scandinavian areas, the resumption of trade fairs and cultural events is underway, first and foremost the ‘Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair‘ (7-11 February), flanked by ‘Design Week‘ with events in the studios and showrooms of the Swedish capital (6-12). Despite its variety, Nordic design at this time expresses certain common traits: aesthetic essentiality (almost rarefaction), technical and formal cleanliness, indispensable ecological values, and references to the masters. In this sense, the path of ‘&Tradition‘, a Danish company that has set itself the mission of putting back into production works by the masters of the past (from the 1930s onwards), great innovators of furniture design, alongside contemporary Scandinavian (but not only) designers, is emblematic. Among the most recent operations is ‘Little Petra‘, a surprisingly contemporary armchair designed by Viggo Boesen in 1938 that was only produced in a limited number of pieces, with its ovoid outline and naive spirit, and is now reproduced in a limited edition. Boesen was not a very well known Danish architect (the original sketches remained untouched for 80 years in Boesen’s archives, still rolled up and covered in dust), but he however contributed to defining the aesthetics of Scandinavian design in the 1930s, starting from an organic conception, as opposed to the rationalism of the Bauhaus, then dominant.
A timeless Nordic designer is Hans J. Wegner, one of the outstanding signatures in the catalogue of ‘Carl Hansen & Søn‘, a Danish company that began collaborating with the ‘undisputed master of the chair‘ in 1949, without interrupting production for over 70 years. Wegner’s early masterpieces were precursors to what later became an impressive collection of some of the world’s most iconic pieces of furniture, including the ‘CH24 Wishbone Chair‘, the ‘fork’ chair with the characteristic backrest that now returns in a renewed teak version, together with the elegant ‘CH 327’ table in a mix of oiled teak and oak. Between 1950 and 1960, Wegner had used this exotic wood for his furniture, later abandoning it due to supply difficulties: today, the ‘Wishbone Chair’ is reproposed in sustainable teak, Fsc certified and produced from responsibly managed forests. The simple and functional trait of Nordic design is well expressed in the ‘Shelving System‘ conceived and produced by the Copenhagen-based design studio ‘Moebe‘. The founding criterion is modularity, well expressed in this shelving system that can be assembled, expanded, reconfigured at different angles, but also repaired and, at the end of its use, disposed of with ease. Specially designed wedges are used to fasten the uprights and shelves, which provide solidity but also allow maximum freedom in modifications. The principle is to create simple structures, no use of glues, welds, screws, reducing the design to the simplest forms, as a challenge to the more widespread, less sustainable production methods. The ‘Loud Cabinets‘ of the Norwegian ‘Northern‘ emphasise simplicity rich in meaning, for objects that last over time while retaining their beauty: designed by ‘Färg & Blanche‘, a Stockholm-based studio, they are living room storage units in three models (high sideboard, low sideboard and trolley-bar closed by doors). Their beauty is all concentrated in the absolute cleanliness of the profiles, in the harmoniously rounded corners, in the maniacal precision with which the joints and finishes of the legs and top, in solid oak, and of the veneered container are made. They represent an accomplished expression of the Nordic essence of design, never shouty, nor over the top, and for this very reason always capable of entering into dialogue with different elements and contexts.
