DESIGN QUARTERLY 65
BRUNO MATHSSON: FURNITURE/STRUCTURE/IDEAS
Carl E. Christiansson
Carl E. Christiansson: DESIGN QUARTERLY 65: BRUNO MATHSSON: FURNITURE/STRUCTURE/IDEAS. Minneapolis, MN: Walker Art Center, 1966. Original edition. Slim quarto. Saddle stitched thick printed wrappers. 32 pp. 67 black and white illustrations. Wrappers lightly worn and rubbed with a dime-size coffe stain to lower front panel edge [see scan], but a very good or better copy.
8.5 x 11 staple-bound softcover book with 32 pages and 67 black and white illustrations. From the book: "Matthson, like Alvar Aalto of Finland, was interested in the textural qualities of wood and also in its plastic and structural possibilities. He explored techniques of carving, bending, laminating and finishing it, and experimented with seating surfaces of cloth webbing . . . . Lightweight and carefully adjusted to the human scale, Matthson's furniture is both informal and classical . . . . Bruno Matthson produces his distinctive furniture in the small factory once operated by his father in Varnamo, in Sweden's southern province of Smaland." Matthson is particularly well known for his chairs, most of which are still in production.
This special issue of Design Quarterly highlights Bruno Matthson's furniture, architecture, and interior design including his Superellipse table, Triellipse table, self-clamping legs, working chair, folding expansion table, armchair (with canvas webbing), beechwood bed, dining table, Pernilla chair, Jetson chair, Row Houses in Kosta, Sweden, Prenker Residence in Kungsor, Sweden, Municipal Library, Varnamo, Sweden, Swedish Design Center, Stockholm, Sweden and more.
Bruno Mathsson (1907- 1988) descended from four generations of cabinetmakers in Värnamo, Sweden. A perfectionist to the core, he did not consider a piece of furniture complete unless it could pass inspection turned upside down. The designer experimented with carving, bending, laminating, and finishing different types of wooden frameworks and fashioning them with innovative webbings made of hemp, linen or other fabric. Mathsson would make a chair or chaise lounge, and continue to create variations and refine the piece until he was satisfied it was both pleasing to the eye and the rest of the body. Each work of art was custom-made in his family's shop in Värnamo and signed by Mathsson who associated his own Modern furniture with the traditional handicraft of his ancestors.
Mathsson was an architect as well. He designed the Småland Art Archive in Värnamo and from 1947 – 1957 experimented with incorporating large areas of glass into local residential architecture. Although his experiments were not well received in the cold, conservative northern province where he worked, he completed over 100 architectural projects. But it was in the arena of furniture design that he had the most far-reaching impact. While his specialty was seating, he also created influential table designs.
In 1959 poet and mathematician Piet Hein developed the superellipse (expressed mathematically as xn/an + yn/bn = 1) to address an urban design problem in Stockholm. Mathsson seized upon the superellipse as an elegant formal solution applicable to a smaller-scale problem – the tabletop. He designed the self-clamping leg for a superellipse table made in collaboration with Hein.
Design Quarterly began as Everyday Art Quarterly, published by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis starting in 1946. The editorial focus aimed to bring modern design to the masses through thoughtful examination of household objects and their designers. Everyday Art Quarterly was a vocal proponent of the Good Design movement (as represented by MoMA and Chicago's Merchandise Mart) and spotlighted the best in industrial and handcrafted design. When the magazine became Design Quarterly in 1958, the editors assumed a more international flair in their selection of material to spotlight.