Every year, the third-year students at Beckmans College of Design in Stockholm spend a semester collaborating with established Swedish furniture producers. Working in pairs, they each get assigned a company. For students Tora Kirchmeier and Simon Mattisson, the partner became Swedese — a company with a rich heritage specializing in bent veneer furniture.
— When we asked about the limitations of our brief, we got the response that anything was possible, the duo say. It can be quite difficult to come up with something out of thin air, but we knew that we wanted to explore and utilize both the heritage, production opportunities, and incredible craftsmanship within the company. That was a good starting point.
Walking through the company’s factory in Vaggeryd in southern Sweden, Kirchmeier and Mattisson came across all the different tools used to mould and bend wood veneer.
— We realized that we had a unique opportunity to explore Swedese’s rich heritage and simultaneously create something new by utilizing these already existing moulds. Choosing the press moulds normally used to make the handle of a pouf and the back leg of a chair, we experimented with repetition, rotation, and combinations. We ended up with entirely new shapes, completely detached from the purpose for which they were originally intended. To finalize the form, we placed a flat rectangular slab on top, to contrast the waves underneath. We had a desire to translate their classic design language and put it into a new context — our context. Striving to create something which was both contemporary and imbued with the brand DNA, we created a system for a modular collection that could be easily varied, held together by a strong clear visual aesthetic. The result is a bench and two side tables, reminiscent of cursive handwriting. The name, Sincerely, Vaggeryd is a nod, not only to the shapes of the collection, but also a greeting from the workshop itself.
This week, during Stockholm Creative Edition, you will exhibit your line at Swedese’s showroom in central Stockholm. Will it also be available for the end consumer in the future?
— There are a lot of exciting things going on at Swedese at the moment — we can’t really say anything more than that right now…
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