Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair & Design Week
Text by Stockholm Furniture Fair
Stockholm, Sweden
17.12.14
Scandinavian design is a well-known and highly valued concept for design-interested people all over the world. The largest source of inspiration in this field is Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair, which for more than 60 years has attracted purchasers, architects, designers and journalists to Stockholmsmässan and the beautiful capital of Scandinavia each year in February. With the fair as its natural hub, the whole city gets involved as a large number of events, showrooms and parties are organized during the Stockholm Design Week. Welcome to Stockholm on 3-7 February 2015!
During Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair, Stockholmsmässan’s 70,000 square meters are full to bursting point with the latest innovations within interior design and lighting for both homes and public spaces. New products, new materials, new knowledge, new trends, new business, new contacts and new environmental and technological solutions are displayed in a both informative and inspirational manner. The exhibitions are of the highest rate and the seminar program is extensive. The first days of the fair are restricted to professional visitors while the concluding Saturday also is open to the general public.
One of the highlights at the fair is the Guest of Honour, a highly respected international designer who is asked to create a lounge in Stockholmsmässan’s entrance hall during the fair. This time the task has fallen to Ilse Crawford, who had been named one of Great Britain’s most influential women within the design industry. She is a designer, academic and creative director with the goal of putting people's needs and desires at the center of everything she does.
Previous Guests of Honour at Stockholm Furniture Fair have been: Inga Sempé, Patricia Urquiola, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Naoto Fukasawa, Konstantin Grcic, Giulio Cappellini, Ineke Hans, Paul Smith, Arik Levy, Oki Sato/Nendo and GamFratesi.
Another fair highlight is the Greenhouse, where new talents are given the chance to show their prototypes and meet manufacturers from the furniture industry. Greenhouse serves as a springboard in the careers of young designers, and is also a great place for furniture manufacturers to find new young talents to cooperate with. Independent designers and design schools from around the world are invited to apply, and several of the leading designers and design groups of our time have had their breakthrough thanks to their participation in Greenhouse. This time Note Design Studio has designed the space of Greenhouse.
Inside Scandinavian Design, created and curated by Färg & Blanche
Inside Scandinavian Design – an exhibition about the work and values in the Scandinavian furniture industry
What are the values of the modern Scandinavian furniture industry? What roles do innovation, craftsmanship and the close relationship between construction and production play in the creation of a piece of furniture? And how is the landscape of production changing, with the increasing emphasize on environmental issues? At the fair the exhibition Inside Scandinavian Design will highlight on important aspects of the work behind Scandinavian furniture.
The exbihition is a collaboration between Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair and TMF, The Swedish Federation of Wood and Furniture, and is being curated by the design duo Färg & Blanche, who makes a selection of products from several exhibiting companies. The exhibition follows a product from idea to realization, covering the great process of designing, developing and producing, as well as the challenges of creating something long lasting on the market.
New at the next fair is that the Design Bar will be integrated into a new knowledge area that will also include a stage and an exhibition. The task of creating an overall concept for the area went to designer Mattias Stenberg, who offers visitors the pallette of Norrland’s colors, materials and flavors – with a clearly modern twist.
Speakers, panelists and moderators from around the world will participate in the Stockholm Design Talks, the Fair's forum for knowledge and discussions concerning design. The theme of the upcoming Stockholm Design Talks is “Tales of Creativity”.
At the area Twelve you can see twelve established Nordic designers, among others Alexander Lervik, Anki Gneib and Petra Lilja. Johanna Agerman Ross, Editor-in-Chief of Disegno Magazine, is the curator and Twelve’s space is designed by design duo Folkform, which is also one of the twelve exhibitors.
The traditional boundary between home and public spaces is becoming more and more blurred. Therefore Stockholm Furniture & Light has invited four interior designers to the Trend Exhibition 2015/16 to design spaces that could be found both in the home and in public places: a hotel lobby, lunch room, home office and bedroom. The task of designing the exhibition has been given to designer Johanna Asshoff, Sweden; color expert Dagny Thurmann-Hoelseth, Norway; trend expert Stefan Nilsson, Sweden and interior stylist Lene Ostenfeldt, Denmark.
If you want to know more about Eco-smart materials you should visit the exhibition Materials & CSR, which is produced by Materialbiblioteket [The Materials Library]. The Materials & CSR installation will be showcasing different materials and manufacturing methods, with special emphasis on the eco-smart arguments for the featured exhibits.
The same week as Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair, Stockholmsmässan also organizes Stockholm Design Week, presenting more than seventy high-profile design events at various venues around the city.