FURNITURE OF THE YEAR 1998
– with life and zest
Furniture of the Year 1998 is called LIV and is a collection of poetically playful furniture and objects, designed by architect Jonas Bohlin, who is awarded Sköna Hem’s distinction for good Swedish furniture design.
The collection is an example of the Bohlinesque freedom that we have come to know ever since the 1981 debut with the concrete chair Concrete. Here are furniture pieces that shy away from every label and Sköna Hem’s jury motivates itself: LIV is a collection with heart, a unified play, a stripped-down and straightforward manifestation, a wholeness with poetic foundation at a high artistic level.
Exhibition “LIV”, Färgfabriken Gallery, Stockholm 1997. Photo: Stefan Frank-Jensen.
The furniture and objects have their origin in the journey to Paris that Jonas Bohlin undertook here around the year. A rowing trip with the help of 53 friends and four oars in an open longboat, a specially built beauty in wood with the same name. The three letters are also the Latin number 54 and according to numerology’s theories a symbol for fertilization and birth.
From Riddarholmskajen in Stockholm on a beautiful May morning, the journey went via Lake Mälaren, the Baltic Sea, Göta Canal and Kattegat to small waterways and canals in Germany, Holland and Belgium to 116 days later reach the Seine and Pont Neuf in Paris.
“It was an old dream realized,” tells Jonas Bohlin.
The exhibition at Färgfabriken in Stockholm then became a “documentation of a divine journey, in time and space,” as he writes in the book with the same name. All objects are also inspired by the journey: The armchair with boards like one of the many docks where one rested, the wardrobe with transparent plastic cloth like the sails which were seldom hoisted, the rug that resembles the starry sky and the infinitely long canals, the stool with white cushion seat like the dream, the clouds and reminder of what one missed most during the rowing – a lovely pillow for the night.
The neat chair, with drop-shaped backrest, we find today at the new Architecture Museum’s café and in the armchair visitors sink down when they visit. Modern Museum’s director, David Elliott immediately ordered a pair of armchairs when he became aware of them. Here at the office they are upholstered in black leather.
Besides a series of furniture, often in the borderland art-function, Jonas Bohlin has previously had exhibition commissions, made illustrations and interiors, among others the restaurant Rolfs kök and art collector Fredrik Roos’s Stockholm apartment. Right now he is engaged in giving venerable Sturehof a facelift. In between he has been gallery owner, teacher at Beckman’s design program, which he initiated, and chairman of SIR, the interior architects’ national association.
Now in December he received the Arts Grant Foundation’s large scholarship of 250,000 kronor. “Money I intend to use to get a real studio (the previous one is more like a closet) with the possibility to show and sell my furniture. LIV I produce myself, which I think is a fun part of the process.”
Furniture of the Year is Sköna Hem’s distinction for good and innovative furniture design. The jury has included architect Gunilla Allard, the professor at Konstfack Love Arbén, architect Thomas Sandell, glass designer Ann Wåhlström as well as from the editorial staff Lage Stone and Dan Gordon. The distinction, a diploma designed by graphic designer Lotta Kühlhorn, was awarded at a ceremony at the furniture fair in February.
Jonas Bohlin, the man who goes his own way,
with parts of the LIV collection. He produces the furniture himself.
Photo: Micke Lundström. Lennart Kaltea. Stefan Frank-Jensen.
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