Bruno Mathsson Explained

Bruno Mathsson (13 January 190717 August 1988) was a Swedish architect and furniture designer whose ideas aligned with functionalism, modernism, as well as the Swedish crafts tradition.[1]

Biography

Mathsson was raised in the town of Värnamo in the Småland region of Sweden, the son of a master cabinet maker.[2] After a short time of education in school, he started to work in his father's gallery. He soon found a great interest in furniture and especially chairs, their function and design. In the 1920s and 30s he developed a techniques for building bentwood chairs with hemp webbing. The first model, called the Grasshopper, was used at Värnamo Hospital in 1931.[3]

Edgar Kaufmann Jr., director of the Industrial Design Department at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), collected Mathsson's chairs and included them in several exhibitions in the 1940s.[4] Kaufmann considered Mathsson's importance in furniture design on par with that of Alvar Aalto.[5] Kaufmann and his family also had a Mathsson chair at their house Fallingwater.[6]

Mathsson was also an accomplished architect; he completed about 100 structures in the 1940s and 50s.[7] He was the first architect in Sweden to build all-glass structures with heated floors. His furniture showroom in Värnamo (1950) was a significant example; it is well-preserved and open to the public today. For his glass houses, he developed double- and triple-pane insulated glass units called "Bruno-Pane".[8]

He traveled extensively in the United States and was strongly influenced by the solar houses of George Fred Keck. Mathsson's architecture was also influenced by a visit to the Eames House by Charles and Ray Eames in March 1949 just as it was being completed.[1]

Works

Furniture

Architecture

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Widman. Dag. Winter. Karin. Stritzler-Levine. Nina. Bruno Mathsson: architect and designer. 2006. Yale University Press. New Haven and London. 9780300121919.
  2. Web site: About Bruno Mathsson . Bruno Mathsson International AB . 2019-04-20 . 2020-08-08 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200808175942/http://mathsson.se/en/about-bruno-mathsson-en . dead .
  3. Web site: Bruno Mathsson: Architect and Designer, Past Exhibition, March 22 – June 10, 2007 . Bard Graduate Center .
  4. Web site: Bruno Mathsson . Museum of Modern Art .
  5. Web site: Modern rooms of the last fifty years . Kaufmann Jr. . Edgar . 1947 . Museum of Modern Art .
  6. Web site: The Fallingwater Collection.
  7. Christiansson . Carl E. . Bruno Mathsson: Furniture/Structures/Ideas . Design Quarterly . 65 . 65 . 1–2, 5–31 . 1966 . 4047313 . 10.2307/4047313 .
  8. Kiss . Bernadett . Neij . Lena . The importance of learning when supporting emergent technologies for energy efficiency: A case study on policy intervention for learning for the development of energy efficient windows in Sweden . Energy Policy . 39 . 10 . 6514–6524 . 2011 . 10.1016/j.enpol.2011.07.053 .
  9. Book: Design of the 20th Century. Charlotte. Fiell. Peter. Fiell. Taschen. Köln. 25th anniversary. 2005. 455. 9783822840788. 809539744.
  10. Web site: Bruno Mathsson . Duxiana . Duxiana . 2 May 2024.
  11. Web site: Swedish Designer Bruno Mathsson's Home Is a Perfect Midcentury Time Capsule . Xie . Jenny . December 5, 2017 . Dwell magazine .

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