Abstract

This study was carried out to review the characteristics of the Swedish modern furniture design and the works of Bruno Mathsson, who is appreciated as one of the most important furniture designers in the history of modern Swedish design. First, the authors examined how the Swedish designers set the value of warm, graceful humanity, practical simplicity, and the traditional craftsmanship in their furniture design with modernist ideology. Second, by examining the range of Bruno Mathsson's works from the 1930s to the 1980s, the authors searched for how these works show the realized models of the ideals of Swedish modern furniture. In this, this article explains that Mathsson's works and the modern Swedish furniture could have been regarded and beloved as being innovative and modern for more than 50 years for their friendliness to human body by the ergonomic structure and to human feeling by the quality of natural materials and finishes. In addition, their consistent effort to adopt traditional craftsmanship into functionalist ideals of modern design shows how these furniture designs could have keep the lasting quality in the life of people in different time frames.

Keywords

• Scandinavia;
• Sweden;
• Furniture Design;
• Bruno Mathsson