“Ideas that Scandinavian design is all simplistic, clean lines constructed in modest materials and with a democratic approach are stereotypes,” says the curator of Scandinavian Design, Widar Halen. “After all, many of these aspects can be found in Japanese and German design of the last 50 years as well.”
Writing in the exhibition catalogue, Mirjam Gelfer-Jorgensen thinks that the region’s geography explains the lightness and simplicity of Scandinavian design. But historically there was something else at work.
“Really, the idea of Scandinavian design was a huge marketing ploy,” says Halen, who is also chief curator of the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design in Oslo. “The Nordic countries needed to sell our goods to the rest of the world after the devastation of the second world war. So we joined forces.”
According to Halen, Scandinavian designers’ taste for multifunction was largely dictated by economics. Many of their cities had been bombed to rubble. The rise of the middle class and the need for new housing led to the creation of smaller apartments that required versatile furniture.
The first section in the exhibition examines how the myth of Scandinavian design was constructed and features Hans J Wegner’s 1949 landmark “round chair,” which kick-started the world’s love affair with Scandinavian design. The second section features the bestsellers. Here is Verner Panton’s zesty red stackable chair.
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The third section embraces a variety of objects including a coat stand in the shape of a tree, a low-lying rocking chair, a coffee pot favoured by airlines and a lop-sided wine rack that wittily conveys the result of overindulgence.
Finally, we arrive at “stereotypes galore” offering a glimpse into the strange world of art school humour. One designer has re-created Arne Jacobsen’s ant chair with laughably exaggerated legs. “The legs cast a shadow in the same way that designers of the 1950s overshadow the new generation,” says Halen. “It’s a kind of ironic reverence.”
Scandinavian Design is at the Lighthouse, Glasgow until Aug 28