Madonna chair and armchair, designed by David Ericsson

Madonna is a light-weight beech chair of slender dimensions, inspired partly by the Italian Chiavari chair and the classic Swedish step stool. In David Ericsson’s design, the two are brought together in a perfect harmony of stability and fragility.

Gärsnäs’ furniture production is founded on craftsmanship and tradition, centring mainly round quality furniture of wood. Production takes place in our own factory in the village of Gärsnäs, in the Österlen region of Skåne, Sweden. While adamantly refusing to compromise on quality, we are strong believers in renewal, and David Ericsson’s Madonna is fully in keeping with the Gärsnäs philosophy of subtle, handcrafted details making the product complete.

The thinner the input materials, the trickier furniture fabrication becomes. Stability and real durability demand high precision and tight joins. Gärsnäs picked up the gauntlet and is now overjoyed at being able to present an aesthetically and qualitatively durable chair worthy of a Madonna.

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Madonna’s background has to do with the Danish castle of Christiansborg, which was the scene last year of an invited competition for a new chair to be used on banqueting occasions there. The pre-existing stock of Chiavari chairs, the model popularly known as “the gold chair”, was showing signs of wear and tear. Several entries were received, but none of them led to a commission. At this point it struck David Ericsson that if the great designer Hans J. Wegner had still been alive, he would unquestionably have come up with something.

Conjointly with its big Hans J. Wegner centenary exhibition last year, the Art Museum of South Jutland, located in Tønder, Denmark, invited one designer from each of the Nordic countries to represent our own time in designing an article of furniture. Sweden was represented by Ericsson, who designed the “new” official chair for Danish state banquets,, naming it Madonna.

Since graduating from the Carl Malmsten School in 2010, David Ericsson has alternated between the running of his own studio and a guest lectureship at the Carl Malmsten School.

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