Stockholm Furniture Fair 2020

The practice, headed by Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien, designed the installation for the entrance hall at the Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair, which is dedicated to a different designer or studio each year as the chosen "guest of honour".

Another position of honour was given to experimental design duo Wang & Söderström who designed the Greenhouse area. They drew inspiration from wilderness and growth, wanted to create a „suggestive and visual narrative.”

Doshi Levien sketches of Earth to Sky

The Stockholm Furniture fair featured many known and loved brands that presented both stylish and innovative work. The Rope Chair Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec was celebrated, as was the W203 Ilumina lamp by Ilse Crawford for Wästberg. Some Scandinavian classics showed updated and redesigned classic designs, including Drop Leaf by Hvidt & Mølgaard For &Tradition, the BM62 armchair by Børge Mogensen for Frederica and the release of the Campas 300 collection for Kvadrat by great graphic designer Finn Sködt, who died last year. The relationship between Scandinavian and Japanese aesthetics, resulting in very elegant and sleek pieces, remains strong, including the work of Offecct with designs by Jin Kuramoto and Teruhiro Yanagihara. Sustainability, of course, was something touched upon by a handful of brands, including the presentation Natural Bond by Tarkett designed with Note.

At the Stockholm Design Week, and in the city of Stockholm during the fair, the city was also ripe with design. Museum ArkDes presented exciting work by Young Swedish Design, including an experimental side table by Elias Båth made out of unwanted biproducts of the steel industry and surprising vessels made by Julia Olanders made out of plaster and insulation foam. The Bouroullec brothers made another appearance outside of the fair showing their new vase collection Imperfections for Iittala at Wetterling gallery. Another good spot to visit was Blå Station, a Scanian family business, this year showing pieces like the Röhsska chair, which is named after the leading Swedish design museum that was reopened in 2019.

That is the beauty of Scandinavian design – it lays not just in the aesthetics, but also in the ways that tradition and legacy permeate the whole practice. Until next year!