Five mid-century modern Nordic furniture designers to know

Hans Wegner

The Danish furniture designer Hans Wegner created more than 500 different chairs. Formed principally from wood, his creations are known for their skilled balance between innovation and practicality, with some models designed for production on a large scale in order to disseminate their impact as widely as possible.

The designer’s most iconic pieces include the ‘Wishbone chair’, named after its Y-shaped back, and the ‘Valet’ chair, which was designed for carefully hanging each piece of a man’s suit, with the hinged seat lifting to hold trousers overnight and revealing a box in which to place accoutrements. With its unusual shape, it encapsulates Wegner’s desire to inject an element of fun into functional design.

Märta Måås-Fjetterström

Founded in 1919, MMF, the influential studio of Swedish textile designer Märta Måås-Fjetterström, remains in operation today. Over her career, Måås-Fjetterström created some 700 patterns for rugs and fabrics, and championed emerging female talent by employing young textile graduates and training local women. Examples from the MMF studio are now held in museums including the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Museum of Stockholm.

Måås-Fjetterström was a pioneer: in an increasingly industrialised industry, each piece was — and still is — made entirely by hand. For anyone interested in artisanal production, knowing where an artwork comes from and how it is made, the works of Måås-Fjetterström and MMF are exemplary.

Following Måås-Fjetterström’s death in 1941, MMF’s work continued under her disciples, Barbro Nilsson, Ann-Mari Forsberg and Marianne Richter. Måås-Fjetterström’s creations are embroidered with ‘MMF’, whereas designs made posthumously are signed ‘AB MMF’ to signify when the firm became listed.

Kaare Klint

Kaare Klint is often referred to as the father of modern Danish design. As a founder of and teacher at the department of furniture design in the Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Klint influenced some of the greatest architects and designers to emerge in the 1940s, including Arne Jacobsen, Poul Kjaerholm and Hans Wegner.

Klint’s designs are known for being simple, lightweight and highly functional. These qualities are embodied in one of his earliest and best-known works, the Faaborg chair, presented at the inauguration of the Faaborg Museum in 1915, and intended to be portable enough for visitors to pick up and place before artworks they wished to contemplate.

The quality of Klint’s furniture is second to none: he was utterly dedicated to producing works of the highest standards, using the best timbers. There is also a familiarity to his work, often with a nod towards 18th-century furniture design and an element of tradition that buyers found comforting.

Finn Juhl

Danish designer Finn Juhl was progressive in the sense that he rejected everything that older designers such as Kaare Klint stood for. Working outside the establishment, he pushed furniture design in new ways with his shapes and structures.

Juhl was entirely self-taught. He studied architecture in the 1930s, and started experimenting with furniture design almost a decade later, creating pieces for his personal use. His lack of training freed him from tradition and allowed him to be more innovative with his creations.

Juhl is best known for his chairs with a floating back and seat — the upholstered parts being removed from the structure. This can be seen most clearly in his ‘Chieftain’ chair from 1949, considered his most famous piece. He also had a utilitarian focus, designing, for example, a bench that could also serve as a low table.

Paavo Tynell

Paavo Tynell was one of the pioneers of electrical lighting design in Finland in the early 20th century. This earned him the sobriquet ‘the man who illuminated Finland’.

Tynell trained as a tinsmith, later working as a blacksmith and a jewellery designer. He brought these experiences to his lighting, creating delicate, ornamental pieces in a variety of metals. He was inspired by nature, with many of his works taking the shapes of leaves, shells and snowflakes.

In the 1930s and 1940s Tynell collaborated with his compatriot Alvar Aalto, producing fixtures for all of the architect’s major projects. The ‘Snowflake’ series is Tynell’s most sought-after design, and represents the zenith of his work.

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