News from Materia @ Stockholm Furniture Fair 2006

Stockholm Furniture Fair February 2006

”The design world knows that there is a group of young and promising talents on the Swedish scene who are eagerly waiting to meet their audience. The question is, who is going to materialize their ideas? Who wants to give Scandinavian design a new face? Who will be daring enough to give them an international platform?”

FRONT
FUNCTION. Katja Sävström, Sofia Lagerkvist, Charlotte von der Lancken and Anna Lindgren are the hottest names on the Scandinavian design scene ever ‘Design by Animals’. Four very committed provocateurs who turn accepted concepts upside down and inside out, sometimes just leaving the outcome to chance. They are now going one step further, giving unlimited space to humour and playfulness when materializing their ideas for Materia. Which only proves that the quartet’s mind-boggling ideas can be put into production!

BIN Virtual reality in real life

PEG Wall statement

HOOK The World as we know it turned upside down

SCREEN Fabricated truth

MÄRTA
INTENSION. Märta Friman is a furniture designer and interior architect. It shows. As soon as she puts pen to paper she foresees the role of the furniture in the room. Perhaps this is why she can so elegantly balance volumes and surfaces. In her exam project at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, she tackled a piece of furniture that usually plays a minor part and gave it the leading role. And in doing so put her finger on what design is all about. Not just surfaces, not pure shapes and forms, but aesthetics as a fundamental part of functionality. This approach secured her a position on Materia’s design team. The ‘Ava’ table system is only the beginning. In time, we will no doubt see more proof of this newly-hatched designer’s ability to create tension with soft lines and hard materials.

AVA From minor parts to leading role. AVA Surface tension.

NEW PHASE. NEW FACES.

Materia was established in 1992 by interior architects Kersti Sandin and Lars Bülow and has, under their management, become one of Sweden’s most prominent design companies. On the surface, they appear to be just another manufacturer creating furniture for public spaces. But Materia’s real strength can be found at a deeper level. And this can be attributed to the fingertip sensitivity with which they put their company philosophy into practice: to develop products that both form and support the dynamic processes of working life.

Their steady growth is proof enough of their success. A string of awards confirms their standing, further reinforced by Kerstin Sandin’s recent appointment as professor at the HDK School of Design and Crafts at Göteborg University. This also explains the interest shown by Kinnarps, the office furnishing group, and their subsequent acquisition of Materia in 2004. A development that, on the one hand, has opened doors to the international market while on the other has raised many eyebrows. And what is going to happen to the Materia brand?

This is the general outline. Under the continued leadership of Lars Bülow, and with Kersti Sandin playing a strategic role, the partnership is turning a new leaf and plotting a completely new course for Materia. Their sketch blocks have been put to one side in order to give a new generation of designers an opportunity to materialize their own ideas. First out is the design group Front, thereby affording them their commercial breakthrough. Following them is interior architect Märta Friman. In all, five promising designers whom we proudly present as the first in a series of new faces to be seen at Materia.