STILL LIFE

They’re back in fashion – small, light armchairs with a wooden or tubular steel frame. In the 1950s and 1960s they came to fame as “easy chairs”; now they’ve morphed into “lounge chairs”. For the office or the home.

Stockholm Design Week revealed that noise reduction can look good and smartphones are also changing our furniture. But just what is behind “New Nordic”?

Think gray felt clouds above your desk, planks on the table and gingko leaves on the wall: At the Orgatec in Cologne, there’s a colorful and fun office world full of acoustic panels on show that constrains the communicative cacophony of open-plan offices.

In the beginning there was the wing chair. Today it is available in many materials and versions, and it certainly looks as though they are exponentially increasing: Sofas and armchairs with high backrests. A little hideaway from the cold and the noise of the outside world, which more and more people are beginning to appreciate.

He plays piano in a jazz band, is a trained carpenter, and studied design in Stockholm: His friends like to call Fredrik Mattson the Chick Corea of Swedish design; although a mere 35 years old this Nordic talent, humorous yet serious has already received many prizes. Only recently Mattson received a Red Dot and some time ago the Golden Chair.