STRING FURNITURE PRESENTS MUSEUM – A SHELF FOR AN ENTIRE ART COLLECTION

For the opening of the newly renovated Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, the design and architecture studio TAF and String Furniture were commissioned to design a new console shelf for the NM& artistic collaboration, a series of products developed for the new museum restaurant.

The result: Museum, an elegant and neat shelf. The idea behind Museum was to develop a functional, multifaceted shelf capable of bearing the Nationalmuseum’s collection of busts. Museum is not only perfect for accentuating pieces of art, but also perfume collections or a pile of books by the bedside.

The possibilities are endless and thanks to the shelf’s trim design, several shelves can also be combined on the same surface, for example to showcase the household art or plant collection in an elegant, stylish manner.

“We spent a lot of time on Museum’s proportions, so that it can work in many types of rooms and contexts, for example as a bathroom shelf for cosmetics, or for keys and cell phones in the hallway, or as a bedside table. In order to finetune the dimensions, we constructed a lot of paper models before settling on the final form,” says Gabriella Lenke, designer and co-founder of TAF.

Museum is cast in aluminium, a very light and durable material. As the shelf and the bearing console are cast as one piece, the shelf has the capacity to bear heavier objects. “Being selected by Nationalmuseum as a purveyor of shelving is a great honour. It has been extremely exciting to be part of such a major, culturally historic project to modernise the museum. Now everyone can follow in the Nationalmuseum’s footsteps and showcase their treasures on Museum,” says Pär Josefsson, co-owner of String Furniture.

“Working together with String Furniture, a company with such a long history and extensive knowledge in wall-mounted storage, has been an extremely rewarding and successful collaboration,” says Mattias Ståhlbom, designer and co-founder of TAF.

About TAF

TAF is a Stockholm-based design and architecture studio founded by Gabriella Lenke and Mattias Ståhlbom in 2002. TAF‘s studio in the Södermalm district of Stockholm is located in a converted bakery that used to serve the neighbourhood. There is a nice twist to this, as TAF aims to fulfil a similar function as the bakery through its design — one where design isn’t seen as superfluous but integrated into society on all levels, like the daily loaf of bread. TAF creates products of extraordinary quality and through a process of careful investigation of materials and construction techniques and a healthy dose of discussion, the finished product is often both humorous and thought provoking.