03 June 2015

Chinese furniture enthusiasts recently visited Carl Malmsten Furniture Studies.

“Seven of the most prominent furniture designers in China visited us along with representatives from the furniture industry. The designers will each design a piece of furniture in Swedish pine and in order to inspire them our collaboration partner Svenskt Trä organised a seminar. Six of the most ‘of-the-moment’ designers of wooden furniture showed their work in pine wood. Four and a half of them studied at Carl Malmsten”, Ulf Brunne, director of studies at Carl Malmsten Furniture Studies, says.

Four and a half?
“One of the Swedish designers was Jens Fager who showed his famous RAW Chair. He is married to Sarah Fager who studied with us. That should count as half, shouldn’t it?”

What is so interesting about Swedish pine?
“We demonstrated how you can work with pine to give it different visual expressions. Historically pine was never used for finer furniture, but was used for construction or was simply painted over. But pine is making its way into the parlour.”

Will you be visiting China?
“No, but the visit did have some direct outcomes. A number of alumni have already had inquiries about their work. Rumour has it that one of the designers has been invited to China. That’s fantastic for us. We want to set up a long term collaboration with Svenskt Trä so as to get some more really meaty projects into our courses.”


Published 2015-06-03