Interesting Articles

When it comes to interior design (inredning), nearly everyone has heard of the Swedish and Scandinavian schools and the pervasive style called Swedish Modern, or sometimes Swedish modernism. One of its leading names was that of the late Bruno Mathsson. He was born in 1907 into a family of woodworkers in Varnamo, Sweden, and lived until 1988.

Though Mathsson was a student of the craft tradition, he went well beyond its definitions by using shapes that reflected living creatures, from the human form to grasshoppers. He wanted his furniture (möbler) to be both practical and comfortable. His real genius, however, lay in his ability to make functional beautiful.

Although he made many other types of furniture, he is best known for his chairs and for the practical style of architecture in the last half of his career. Regarding his chairs, he is perhaps most famous for the Pernilla, the Miranda, and the Eva chairs. Almost all of his chair designs have a female name attached to them. This is natural as the curves of the chairs are inspired by the female figure.

His first major chair design, the 'grasshopper', was a failure when it first appeared in 1931, but later became highly sought after. The Eva was first produced in 1934, and gained a much quicker general acceptance by the public, as well as universal praise from furniture (möbler) critics. It comes in both a high and low backed version, the high back is less typical of his arm chair designs.

The Eva chair makes use of the usual Mathsson lines and curves while also making use of webbed upholstery. The originals of these chairs were most likely made out of beech, but many other types of woods were used, while the webbing material could be made from anything. The chairs made during wartime were made from scrounged material such as paper and hemp.

The Eva chair is still being manufactured as a true classic, and both old and new models still command hefty price tags, but nearly anyone who has one thinks it is worth it. The upholstery can be customized to any color scheme or situation, and the choice of woods is quite generous. Mathsson made chairs until the end of his life in 1988, and continued to make simple but attractive chairs, adding innovations to suit the age.