How Scandinavian design took over the world
curbed.com
curbed.com
What Scandinavian designers offered at the time was something entirely different: International modernism in its purest form. The architects of the time, most notably Arne Jakobsen, were heavily inspired by German and American modernists. They were just better at it.
Jakobsen designed most of his chairs for a skyskraper in Copenhagen that's essentially a copy of Lever House on Park Avenue in NYC, and his mania for designing every last item in the skyskraper mirrored that of Mies van der Rohe, a German-American. At the time, it was considered "American" by Danes.
If there's anything special about Scandinavian design, and I believe there is, it's the constant search for purity.
There's not a single period in Scandinavian art history since the Protestant reformations of the 16th century that isn't dominated by the search for purity. Even baroque art from Scandinavia is strangely cool. It just happens to in vogue today, and since we practiced for centuries and it's engrained in our culture, we're very, very good at it.
Culture is much deeper than whatever political currents dominate a country at one partical point in time.
Even back in the 1500s Scandinavian countries were markedly milder towards criminals than e.g. Britain which always had a much harder stance towards crime. So just like design, the philosophies that underly the welfare state has been there a long time.
It is just that in later years, especially in e.g. Norway with its oil wealth, the welfare state system has become a lot more visible, due to the amount of money available to expand it.
((* ) And by "run out", I mean "become unprofitable to pump considering the market price", of course.)
But it may highlight another point that could be made: Instead of corrupting the country similar to the oil-rich arab states, the norwegians have managed the richness with a typical Scandinavian common-sense (Lutheran?) approach: Define the oil richness as a common good and make sure to invest profits for future generations rather than burn it all on the current generation.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/01/11/oil-fund-norway-mill...
But, as I said - that is a luxury only Norway has enjoyed.
In fairness, the model used for managing the oil in Norway was created by an Iraqi immigrant. (http://web.archive.org/web/20090831100821/http://www.ft.com/...)
With the weakening of the USSR in the late 70s and 80s and its collapse in the early 90s, social democracy has gone into a tailspin crisis, with its strength and focus undermined (losses to Thatcherism, the turn to Blairism, etc.)
Tailspin crisis? Did you read the article? The Scandinavian countries weathered the financial crisis quite well.
Also read this: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/978...
The Scandinavian countries fared much better throughout the crisis than neoliberal countries elsewhere in the EU.
The social democrats in Sweden were out of power from 2006-2014, BTW. So whether any specific social democratic policy had anything to do with weathering the financial crisis is debatable...
While it's true that paid maternity leave doesn't exist at the US level, it does exist at the state level. California, population 39 million (versus 26 million for all EU and non-EU Nordic states) offers maternity & paternity leave since circa 2002.
And yes, states with criminal jury trials have traditionally been much harder on crime than Scandinavia. The US population growth rate has been incomparable to Scandinavia's, and the immigrants have by and large not been homogeneous in culture nor orderly. And when you're judged by such peers (as versus the king's nepotistic and political appointments, as in Scandinavia), the judgement can be quite harsh.
Your comment was placed on /r/shitamericanssay
> https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitAmericansSay/comments/4c6xpr/ha...
But on a serious note, that my comments make it onto what I assume would be an anti-US (anti-"American") subreddit is ... meh. This is the Internet. It is to be expected.
the same is true for technology and music as well.
Swedes may not be first to market with products and services, but their polish and engineering culture to "get it right" are world class.
Rather, I took the impression from the article that the latest revival which the design school experiences (post 2008 crisis) may be party fueled by renewed interest in the Nordic welfare model.
The welfare states were developed through the 1950s and early 1960s. When I grew up in the 1960s it was already pretty elaborate and generous.
I agree that the "special" part of Scandinavian design is a search for purity and simplicity. That, however, is also a trait of modern Japanese design, and not unique to Scandinavia.
Form follows function.
They looked a lot like IKEA sofas, and the rumour was they were sourced from the same factories and made from similar materials, but offered in a wider range with a hint of extra trim - mostly nicer looking feet.
I was always under the impression that Ikea designed and sold all of its own designs. Is it really a place that sells mostly desirable private-label goods from 3rd parties, a-la Trader Joe's?
> but offered in a wider range with a hint of extra trim - mostly nicer looking feet.
My bother was telling me last weekend about http://www.prettypegs.com/us/. Apparently there's an ecosystem developing around Ikea furniture to provide that.
Also, to completely change the subject. I recently learned that all the Philips-looking screws on Ikea furniture are "Posidriv" screws not Philips and you need special driver for them, because a Philips driver will likely ruin them.
Any article that takes a "Scandinavian design (excluding IKEA of course, ha ha ha poor people)" bent deserves to be ignored. You know why people buy ugly "American" furniture? Because the alternative is too expensive!
The solution to an ugly $500 couch is not a $10,000 minimalist birch piece of furniture.
PS: The iterative design process of IKEA with an emphasis on eliminating cost without compromising function is a marvel of engineering. There have been a few stories, but here's one: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023033769045791347...
These hacks don't require you to be a wood worker or engineer, and that only adds to the sense that you helped build it. I put together a 2 X 4 IKEA bookshelf with a 4 x 4 underneath it to create a 6 X 4.
Because IKEA is so big and has so many products, there are a lot of ways to mix and match their products to come up with something unique. Traditional furniture store are all about making those decisions for you.
Of course, I'm omitting mid century modern, which is quite nice.
The big mainstream American players, say, Ethan Allen, Crate & Barrel, and West Elm have so much stuff that, while generally decent quality, is so disconnected from the time and place. So much of it is designed as if it were to go in a french country cottage, or a log cabin, and so little of it looks like it is was made in the 21st century.
Although Ikea is a bit low-end for me, their designs at least have an honesty about them. There's nice stuff to be had at, say, Design Within Reach, various European brands, and smaller U.S. manufacturers, it's just amazing and frustrating how far from the norm it is, and how difficult it is to find.
I've had one eye on an interesting startup called Campaign Living: http://www.campaignliving.com/, which sells furniture that can be easily assembled and disassembled, then repacked and moved.
Their website is ridiculously hard to use / navigate, at least on desktop, but the concept is interesting, especially for people who move a lot (which is to say, almost everyone in their 20s).
I've also never sat in one, so I can't say whether they're comfortable.
It's available to watch on iPlayer (for UK residents only)
1. Cheap.
2. After two devastating World Wars, people wanted to discard the past. Clean functionality inspired by aircraft represented a modern, better future.