Peter Andersson | ScandinavianDesign.com

Peter Andersson won the 2026 Bruno Mathsson Prize — Scandinavia’s largest design award — for a body of work the jury said puts “the user at the centre,” from public seating down to the demanding, often unglamorous furniture designed for care and education settings.

Studio since 1999

Andersson was born in 1970 and graduated from Konstfack, the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, in 1999, founding his own practice, Peter Andersson Studio (P A S), the same year. The studio now works from both Stockholm and southern Sweden, where a dedicated workshop for full-scale prototyping has run since 2020.

Furniture for care and education

A recurring thread through Andersson’s work is furniture for exactly the settings the Bruno Mathsson jury singled out as carrying “particularly high demands on ergonomics and usability” — seating and acoustic panels for the Swedish manufacturer NC Nordic Care, including the Tilt chair, named Furniture of the Year in 2006, alongside the Charlie, John, Knut and Rialto ranges. The jury noted that this kind of design work “often remains unacknowledged despite its significant impact on society.”

Working with Matti Klenell

With fellow designer Matti Klenell, Andersson has produced the Botero sofa for Källemo, extending an earlier Botero chair into a full seating collection, as well as the Rowdy collection for David Design and the Lantern light for Örsjö.

Recognition

Alongside the Bruno Mathsson Prize — worth 100,000 kronor and marked with an exhibition of his work at Vandalorum in Värnamo — Andersson’s pieces are held in the collections of Nationalmuseum and the Museum of Furniture Studies. His solo work for Lammhults includes the Corso easy chair, which grew out of line drawings in his own sketchbook. More of his work is on view at peterandersson.com.

Portrait photo: Johan Knobe