Scandinavian Home Interior Style By Svenskt Tenn

Scandinavian interior style is not just about brevity, minimalism and functional, uniform furniture. That's why the century-old concept of "Svenskt Tenn", based on abundance, luxury and "luxurious comfort", is still popular today.

The origins of this look lie partly in Sweden's commitment to functionalism ("funkis" in Swedish) in the early 20th century. The Stockholm Exhibition of 1930, which attracted four million visitors, made modern Swedish design known, and a new design style with clean lines soon emerged.

In 1970, the writers of The New York Times Magazine came up with the catchy name "Scandi" for it. Meanwhile, Ikea, founded in 1943, has been reinforcing this stereotype for decades with its concise, functional and affordable furniture.

However, Swedish design isn't just about the cliched "Scandi". An alternative approach was developed by the influential store and manufacturer Svenskt Tenn, founded in 1924 in Stockholm by the sculptor and jeweler Nils Fugstedt and the energetic entrepreneur and designer Estrid Erikson, partly funded by money inherited after her father's death.

Last year, the brand's 100th anniversary was celebrated with the exhibition "Svenskt Tenn: Philosophy of Home", held at Stockholm's Liljevalchs Museum. Now the new book "Svenkst Tenn: Interiors" by Nina Stritzler tells its story in more detail.

Many modernist designers considered ornamentation superfluous, but Erikson unabashedly championed the idea of bringing beauty into the home, believing it enhanced life. Growing up in the southern Swedish town of Hjo, she was inspired by philosopher and design theorist Ellen Kay, who advocated economical, everyday design in her 1899 book Beauty for All.

"Beauty can exert its ennobling influence everywhere, if only people ... open their eyes and hearts to all that is beautiful," she wrote in the book. "They must learn to understand that beauty in life is not a luxury at all; that you work better, feel better, become more friendly and joyful if you surround yourself in your home with beautiful shapes and colors."

Erikson was also influenced by Gregor Paulsson's 1919 book More Beautiful Everyday Things, who from 1917 was head of the Stockholm-based Swedish Society for Industrial Design, an organization founded in 1845. From the late 19th century, Sweden's traditionally agrarian society became increasingly urbanized and industrialized, and the society campaigned for better design standards in everyday life.

"Svenskt Tenn," meaning "Swedish pewter," originally specialized in the production and sale of handmade products made of pewter (relatively affordable compared to silver). Today, by contrast, the company is synonymous with its irrepressibly colorful textiles, invented by Josef Frank, an Austrian designer and architect of Jewish descent who collaborated with Ericsson until his death in 1967.

He and Erickson were on the same wavelength: most importantly, they did not share Modernism's disdain for ornament. Frank took part in Die Wohnung (German for "The Dwelling"), a landmark exhibition of modernist architecture organized in 1927 in Stuttgart by the German Association of Avant-Garde Architects and Designers, the German Association of Industrial Art, and his design for a family home was criticized for rooms decorated with luxurious, flamboyant textiles.

In the early 1930s, Frank and his Swedish wife Anna traveled to Sweden to escape Nazism. During World War II, they lived in New York City, where Frank created fabrics with bright, large-scale motifs for Erickson. He described his ethereal colors as "not Swedish flowers, but tropical flowers from a fantasy world."

"Frank's botanical motifs were drawn from nature books he found in New York," Stritzler says. Frank spoke little English and couldn't adjust to life in New York. His fabrics seemed to express a desire to escape from the stuffy, light-deprived city to the unusually fertile, paradisiacal natural world.

One of his most classic textiles, called "Hawaii," depicts naive motifs - butterflies, dangling fruit and intertwined branches - in shades of pink, yellow and purple.

Over time, the brand began to offer a wide range of products - fabrics and carpets with colorful patterns by Frank, upholstered sofas, lighting fixtures, wicker armchairs, painted wooden chairs and other furnishings in a variety of materials, from brass to mirrored surfaces.

Stylized flora and fauna motifs on textiles and trays were combined with fresh flowers in vases and lush houseplants. Ivy waved gracefully along the interior walls of the company's new, larger showroom in Stockholm's prestigious Ostermalm district, which opened in 1927.

"Svenskt Tenn," which offered interior design services as well as home goods, soon gained a reputation for its luxurious but cozy style. Erikson did much to promote Swedish design abroad, participating in fairs such as the 1925 Arts and Crafts Fair (from which the name "art deco" was derived) and in international exhibitions in the postwar years.

The store was known for introducing foreign designers to the Swedish public - it held exhibitions of posters by William Morris and glassware by Rene Lalique, as well as selling pieces by Italian artist and designer Piero Fornazetti.

"Svenskt Tenn" also incorporated elements of the 1930s decorative arts style of "Swedish Grace," a term coined by British journalist Philippe Morton Shand. This style combined Art Deco geometry with Nordic folk motifs and elements of neoclassicism.

The pewter urn, first produced by Svenskt Tenn in 1925, was inspired by an ancient Peruvian vessel seen in Stockholm's Museum of Ethnography.

Erickson admired the Swedish artist and writer Karl Larsson, who with his wife Karin Bergo Larsson, a textile artist, owned a cottage in Sundborn, north of Stockholm, which was depicted in many of his watercolors. The cottage (bequeathed to Karin by her father) was transformed into an idyllic home whose interiors were inspired by William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement.

"It's open to the public," says Swedish interior designer Beata Heumann, who founded her London studio in 2013. "The couple mixed bright colors and folk motifs typical of northern Sweden. The house is very layered: the couple mixed dark wood, natural or painted wooden furniture, reclaimed wood paneling that Carl picked up at a local castle, embroidered textiles and huge traditional Swedish stoves that look disproportionate in the rooms they are in."

Heumann, who is also an admirer of Josef Frank, adds: "I think Erikson was influenced by Swedish folk art, but was also a child of her time - Swedish grace and modernism - and created a new style. Frank has influenced almost all of my designs. I love the patterns on his textiles that twist and turn; it's hard to see where they begin and end. One of them is called 'Miracle' because he thought it was a miracle that he was able to develop such a design."

Although Erickson was passionate about preserving and promoting Swedish craft, some consider "Svenskt Tenn" to be a unique phenomenon, standing alone in Swedish design history.

"The Arts and Crafts movement and the later Svenskt Tenn company that emerged share some values, but I hesitate to draw a direct line between them," says Stritzler. "Erikson was a pioneer of its kind. She could create beauty out of anything she touched-a simple bouquet of flowers, a table setting, for which she was best known, or an object made of pewter. She had a gift for creating furnishings that transformed rooms, making them comfortable, practical and beautiful."

According to Jane Weathers, curator of the Svenskt Tenn exhibition, although the brand was influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and Morris's textiles, the transition to his signature style began in the 1930s when Ericsson began collaborating with Frank.

"The brand's eclecticism stemmed in part from Frank's rejection of the idea of Gesamtkunstwerk (German for "unity of the arts") - the home as a coherent work of art in a single style. For him, being modern meant being free, not imposing a fixed design aesthetic. Svenskt Tenn's philosophy is based on a generous, joyful, progressive idea of home that transcends changing styles and dogma to create a space of psychological and physical comfort. At a time when we are surrounded by stylized interiors that look alike, this human-centered point of view is very refreshing," she says.

Perhaps some of Svenskt Tenn's characteristic enthusiasm has been passed on to Ikea: the company's museum in Elmhult is currently hosting an exhibition called "Magic Patterns," featuring 180 colorful textiles, though they can't be compared to Frank's undeniably complex and sophisticated prints.

Svenskt Tenn is now owned by the Beyer Foundation, which supports research in science, medicine and design, and many of its classic designs are still popular. But the brand continues to grow and has recently collaborated with some well-known contemporary designers.

While some consider "Svenskt Tenn" too individualistic to be typically Swedish, Edin Memic Kjellwerz, co-founder of Dusty Deco, a Swedish company that sells modern and vintage furniture, believes it cannot be separated from Swedish culture.

According to Kjellwerz, "his philosophy is definitely still relevant and meaningful. Swedes tend to spend a lot of time in their homes, so they like spacious, individual, cozy spaces where handmade furniture, rich textiles and thoughtful details don't just look beautiful, but create a feeling of home. That's always been our approach."