This huge book with over 700 stunning illustrations takes the reader through hundreds of iconic designs and many less well known. Categories include architecture, furniture, lighting, ceramics, glass, woodenware, plastics, jewellery, and graphic design, and each individual concept or designer comes with an explanatory paragraph. By the 1960s, 25% of all Danish furniture went to the UK. Arne Jacobsen's Bauhaus-inspired steel-legged stacking Ant Chair of moulder plywood was followed by other ergonomic chairs, while the Billy bookcase by Gillis Lundgren for IKEA in 1979 has sold more than 40 million units. The Swedish Lilla H high-backed chair of 1989 is a single sheet of red plywood bent in an M-shape. Glassware includes the richly coloured geometric goblets of Finnish Kaj Franck, and Metalware features the iconic cutlery designs of the jeweller Georg Jensen. The book starts with architecture, from the "expressive bravado" of Reykjavik's Hallgrimskirkja Lutheran church to Arne Jacobsen's St Catherine's College, Oxford. The year 1925 introduced modern Scandinavian design to the world at the Paris International Exhibition of Decorative Arts, an exhibition which created the term Art Deco. Scandinavian design was closely linked to modernism, though the Nordic version is generally recognised to be more human and domestic in character, perhaps influenced by the Danish concept of hygge, joy in the simplicity in everyday life. A major influence on Scandinavian modernism was Carl Larsson's 1899 book A Home, describing his own domestic interiors and hailed as the essence of Swedishness, while also chiming with Arts and Crafts functionalism. In spite of sharing comparable life-enhancing goals, each of the four main Nordic countries - Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland - had a different emphasis. The domesticity of Denmark was matched by a greater socio-political consciousness in Sweden, with a strong moral and ergonomic imperative. Norway is a land where the harsh climate necessitates people finding their own solutions within a rich decorative folk tradition, while in Finland designers focused on ideals of nature-inspired functionality. The 1954 exhibition of Scandinavian design in New York set the tone of the postwar years, with high-quality production values matching a refined aesthetic. A superb book and an ideal gift. 592pp, colour photos on every page.
Additional product information
