Sandqvist

Sandqvist was founded by Anton Sandqvist in 2004 and his company produces a range of canvas and leather bags, briefcases and smaller items such as key fobs and wallets. He is an engineer by training so he understands and is interested in the technical side of manufacturing but, more important, he and his brother, who has now joined him in the company, have a passion for the outdoors and fond memories of camping out and climbing in their childhood with simple and practical gear. That is not to suggest that their products are just retro or that they ignore modern high-tech materials for about half the range is produced in heavy-weight Cordura but, to quote their own journal, “Sandqvist bags are uncomplicated and beautiful with a clear Swedish heritage.” 

They use vegetable-tanned full-grain leather and many of their bags are in cotton canvas that fades and softens and mellows to reflect the way you use them. With my last back pack I got tired of searching through endless pockets because I couldn’t remember where something was stowed and it had clips and loops that I never did find a function for. With the small day pack I bought from Sandqvist there is a simple draw string under the single flap, like an old-fashioned duffle bag, and a zipped pocket for small items in the top flap and a single large deep internal pocket down the back which is ideal for maps. For a day pack all you need. Brilliant.

The range of colours is also great. There is a strong dark blue - that slightly green Swedish blue that means it really really  isn’t a French Navy - and a strong brick red - but less orange - and a deep yellow - that is half way between Sienna and mustard.

Their basement shop in the Södermalm district of Stockholm has been well laid out with some good pieces of classic Scandinavian furniture and, more important, a large pin board for maps and notes and post cards from friends and customers.

Inevitably, many of the bags are made in India, for straightforward economic reasons, but this is not necessarily a bad thing - traditional leather-working skills and sewing skills have survived in India and the workshop used by Sandqvist not only has these traditional skills but even uses old Swedish sewing machines.

In so many European countries, as accountants drove the move to outsource manufacturing, the inevitable consequence was that local craftsmen were made redundant and their skills and the machinery they needed were lost. Sandqvist is trying to redress the loss and they have brought some manufacturing back to Stockholm, working with Magnus Nyström, a leather craftsman who has a workshop in the same district and has “a passion for his craft”. Together they are producing a range of briefcases under the label Made In Sweden.

Anton Sandqvist admits that the briefcases made in Stockholm are twice as expensive as those he has made in India so really it is down to the customers to make this move back to Swedish production a success.

I have discussed this dillema several times on this blog but it is worth repeating. Good designers rarely produce great designs if they do not have a very real understanding of the materials and craft and manufacturing techniques that will be used to realise their designs. Surely that knowledge and ongoing relationship can best develop through the designer and the maker working closely together and that is most easily done by being geographically close?

For the customer the choice might not be so immediately obvious. Surely the decision is easy when faced with two similar products but one twice the price of the other? 

That’s fine if you simply want something in the latest colour with the right label and you want a new one next year in whichever colour will be fashionable then. The promiscuous consumer looks first at the fashion press and then at the label and the price tag. Neither the item nor the manufacturer need to survive because next season there will be a new label and a new item.

But maybe the alternative is to search out what you need that will do what you want now. If it looks right and feels right and you enjoy using it time after time, then surely product loyalty becomes more important than following a rapidly-changing fashion label. I'm not against change - simply against change for the sake of change. A good well-designed product should evolve and develop so, when you finally have to admit that you need a replacement, something reassuringly similar is available but possibly it's even better.

Sandqvist is clearly succeeding and growing - they now have a second store in Gothenburg and in the summer started a journal that seems to appear twice a year. The second issue is out now and has articles on the company and its founders with descriptions of treks with the backpacks, testing new lines, and there are also profiles of friends of the company and the heroes who have inspired the team.

The journals also include a catalogue with images of the full range and all colour options.

If you are in London, the Journal and a range of Sandqvist products can be tracked down at The Content Store in Lambs Conduit Street and when I was in Shrewsbury in the Autumn I found a small shoe shop, Brok on Wyle Cop, with some of the bags so word is spreading.

Sandqvist have a TUMBLR site for images that is well worth visiting.

specialist shops in Copenhagen

Good design in Scandinavia isn’t confined to furniture and household goods.

There are a huge number of shops in Copenhagen selling all sorts of things where the design of packaging or the layout of the shop is considered to be a crucial part of the selling and buying transaction. The bakeries and food halls are one obvious example.

There are also specialist shops that take real pride in what they sell because in many cases they themselves design and make many of the products in the shop. There are two very good examples of this if you walk along what is generally known as the Little Walking Street.

At the start of the Little Walking Street, right at the west end, at Rådhusstræde 8 is Blå Form. Here a long-standing partnership of four textile designers produces clothing for women that shows a huge awareness of colour and texture and they produce and use for their clothing the most amazing textiles.

Mant is at Læderstæde 30. They sell well-made wooden toys, gifts, cards and even flowers and herbs for the garden but their own products are their wax altar candles made originally on Bredgade but now made at Nordhavnen in Østerbro - north of the city centre. The bees wax candles are of a superb quality and come in a mind-boggling range of heights and diameters, all marked with the number of hours they will burn for, and they are carefully wrapped with instructions for “cheating” the wick.

Trip Trap/Skagerak

The main showroom for Skagerak is at Indiakaj, just north of Kastellet, between the fortification and the dock where the ferries from Oslo arrive. The name change - Trip Trap in Denmark to Skagerak in England - is simply because of a conflict in registered names that had to be got around - though actually I quite like running both names together because it sounds like the start of a chorus to a nursery rhyme. 

However, there is nothing childlike about the Skagerak products - fun yes but childlike no. The garden furniture and storage systems for the home are very sophisticated, well-designed and well made. 

The showroom is in a building that dates from around 1900 and was presumably an administration building for the docks but it looks remarkably as if it could be the lodge house to an English Victorian country house. There is a good area of garden to the back of the building and the large range of garden furniture is well displayed outside where it should be.

The company has stunning photographs on its web site but actually here, at the showroom, I could see that the chairs and tables had been well used by staff and customers and battered by the weather so they showed how these things will “bed in” and improve with wear.

H Skjalm P

Close to Le Klint, on the east side of the square dominated by the church of St Nicholas, at 9 Nikolaj Plads is H Skjalm P. This amazing shop will be 60 years old at the end of this year and is still run by the widow of the founder Hagbarth Skjalm Petersen.

The shop has a narrow frontage to the square and just inside the door there are steps up to the raised ground floor and steps down to the basement. The lower level is like an Aladdin's Cave of kitchen equipment with racks and drawers and shelves full of anything and everything you might need for cooking and a lot of things you had no idea you needed until you saw them here, or rather, you want them even if you are not quite sure what they are for. 

The upper floor has displays of linens and fabrics in an almost unbelievable range of colours. They have a remarkably good and very sophisticated web site but even that cannot replicate or do justice to actually visiting the shop. Last time I was there “just looking” I came away with 6 tea towels I didn’t know I needed and four drawer knobs that I’m sure I’ll find a use for sometime.

Louis Poulsen and Le Klint

Copenhagen is full of small independent shops. International brands are here and of course there are large department stores with all the well-known labels but almost all streets and squares have long-established specialist shops selling the very best in Danish design.

Højbro Plads (Plads meaning square) is the large space that opens off the south side of the famous Walking Street. Here on either side of the square and within about a hundred Metres of each other are two of the most well-known lighting companies in Copenhagen. 

Out of the square at the bottom or south-west corner and actually on Gammel Strand and looking across the water towards the Palace Chapel is Louis Poulsen. Founded in 1874, this company has always employed top Danish designers including Arne Jacobsen and of course Poul Henningsen who began working with the company in 1924. Henningsen designed the classic PH5 which was launched in 1958. It took its name from the designers initials and the fact that it had a diameter of 50 centimetres. This was the classic metal lamp shade or should I say that this is the classic lamp shade most often used over a dining table and found in many Danish homes in the 1960s and 70s. It has a series of metal shades linked by curved metal columns that enclose the bulb and produce an amazingly beautiful and soft light. 

I found an early version of this shade on an antique market in Copenhagen about 5 years ago. It is in deep grey with white - an unusual colour combination as the most common style is white but with a red or soft purple inner shades that slightly tints the light. It throws a soft light up to the ceiling and there is a pool of light over the table and no one sitting round the table gets dazzled.

However long I sit admiring it, I still can’t quite see how it works it’s magic.

Poulsen are a large and successful company and produce a large range of interior lighting, garden lighting and commercial lights. The showroom on Gammel Strand is primarily offices and design studios for their commercial contracts but the showroom on the street front is open to the public - although note that you do have to go to a shop or supplier elsewhere once you have decided on the lamp you want.

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Off the top end of Højbro Plads, to the east, just along Lille Kongensgade is Le Klint, famous for their pleated lampshades first designed by Peder Vilhelm Jensen-Klint about 1900 along with shades designed by his son Tage Klint who formed the company in the 1940s. If the idea of pleated shades conjours up images of the paper lanterns sold by Habitat and BHS and found in most student flats and a good number of homes in Britain through the 1970s then think again. The lampshades from Klint are like beautiful sculptures in crisp white parchment.

They also sell restrained and well-proportioned standard lamps and bedside lamps and an ingenious scissor action wall lamp in wood that can extend a light out over a work surface or over a reading chair.

Galleri Feldt Copenhagen

To the north of the Design Museum and closer to the water front is the site of the custom house for the port of Copenhagen. A number of port buildings survive and have been restored and converted to new uses. These include long ranges of single-storey buildings in yellow brick with concrete pilasters to the east of St Alban’s Anglican Church and close to the ornate Gefion Fountain. Curiously the west range has a flat roof and the park and grass walks around the Kastellet appear to continue over the top. 

Here at 23-25 Nodre Toldbod is Galleri Feldt run by Louise Feldt and Martin Mathiesen.

Really there are two halves to the gallery. One part displays classic furniture from the mid 20th century of amazing museum quality. When I was there they had two early versions of Wegner’s CH25 and several very beautiful desks. My impression was that few of these pieces sit for long in the showroom for they told me they make regular shipments to collectors in China, Japan and the USA.

The other part of the gallery has newly-made furniture from the company OneCollection who under licence now produce furniture by the mid-century Danish designer Finn Juhl. These include many of his chair designs with the Pelican Chair, the 45 Chair and a Baker Sofa.

There are also versions of the Sideboard and the Panel System of shelving and cupboards. 

Illums Bolighus

Illums Bolighus is the large furniture or design store on the Walking Street ... or officially at 10 Amagertorv, 1160 København K. 

This is probably the best place to start if you are visiting Copenhagen and want to get an idea of the furniture and household and interior design products that are available in Denmark: what is fashionable and what will almost-certainly soon be fashionable. The store has furniture, an amazing kitchenware department, bedding, tableware, glassware ... so almost-certainly anything and everything a Dane might want to set up home.

There are also classic pieces in the store from the mid 20th century that are still in production. At the moment, they have a limited edition, newly re-issued, chair designed by Finn Juhl - the FJ 4900 Chieftains Chair - from One Collection. The original chair was shown at the Cabinetmakers’ Guild Furniture Exhibition in 1949. Juhl was beginning to react against what he described as the “empire of aesthetics” and exhibited the chair along with tools and weapons from primitive peoples to show what inspired his designs - hence the nickname for the chair.

It was the only chair in Illums Bolighus that I could not sit in and try - possibly because it was covered in pale cream leather - or possibly because the price tag was just short of £12,000.

To be serious, this is the best place to start if you want to get a broad view of modern Danish design and a sense of the history of modern design in Denmark ... many of the finest pieces from the 20th century remain in production because the design was so good and because there is still clearly a demand for design and craftsmanship of this quality.

Sørensen Østlyngen Oslo

To the west of the royal palace and cutting through the Oslo district of Frogner, with its well-established and comfortable apartments, are Bygdøy Allé and Frognerveien, both lined with high-quality independent shops.

Sørensen Østlyngen at Bygdøy alle 60 has a good, well-chosen selection of furniture and 90% of the products sold are from Scandinavia. 

But even here there was only one chair that was designed and made in Norway - the iconic Siesta 302 that was designed by Ingmar Relling in 1964. It has a frame of laminated beech and came with canvas and then later leather seats. It is still produced by Rybo of Norway.

With their increasing affluence, I certainly can’t blame the people of Oslo for wanting to buy the best in modern design. And I’m not suggesting that everyone should buy classic mid-century modern furniture ... but I was actually hoping to find furniture from young Norwegian designers. The exhibitions at the Museum of Architecture showed how dynamic and adventurous young architects in Norway can be; the fantastic enthusiasm at DogA shows a hunger for modern product design at it’s best and most challenging and the Design Museum shows the rich heritage of mid-century modern design from Norway. Why is so much of the furniture sold in Oslo from Italy and Germany? Is the problem with the consumers and what they want or with the manufacturers and what they can produce? This is not a criticism - I am just curious.

furniture and design stores in Oslo

One quick and easy way to assess popular and current styles for furniture and interiors in any city is to look at the department stores. Steen & Strøm on Kongengate is probably the most stylish store in Oslo with a beautiful interior but it concentrates on clothing and has what seems to be a deliberate approach to be generally international in style rather than specifically Norwegian.  

Glas Magasinet on the square to the west of the cathedral is a more traditional store and has an extensive kitchenware department but again little seemed to come from Norway apart from an amazing display of blankets and a large display of fur and fleece.

As far as I could see, the general fashion in Oslo is not to buy Norwegian but German or Italian furniture. Stilverk on Kirkegata has a very good and carefully chosen selection of modern furniture but has no Norwegian pieces. Tannum Møbler, on Stortingsgata at the corner of Munkedamsveien, actually looks out towards the National Theatre and interconnects with Norway Design selling gifts from Norway and the shop has a beautiful selection of furniture but only one chair that is made in Norway ... the Scandia Chair designed by Hans Brattrud in 1957 and re-issued by Fjordfiesta.

Fuglen Oslo

Fuglen at Universitetsgata 2 in Oslo is a coffee shop during the day and a cocktail bar in the evening. It has an amazing selection of mid-century furniture most of which is for sale. I drank my coffee sitting in a classic Stressless, produced by Ekornes and launched in 1971 and fortunately no one asked me to move so that they could buy the chair and foot stool.

Open every day, Fuglen seems to be very popular with both students and business people so is busy most of the time.

Fuglen and Blomqvist, the art auction House in Oslo, have recently curated a major exhibition of Norwegian design. I missed it in Oslo as it has just been taken to Tokyo before going on to New York. Called Norwegian Icons, the exhibition includes major pieces of furniture from the period 1940-1975 with glassware and ceramics and photographs of the Norwegian landscape by Rune Johansen and others to place the furniture within its context. Published by Fuglen Forag with photographs of all the pieces and brief pen portraits of the designers, the catalogue for the exhibition will help to re-establish Norway's place in the history of mid-century design.

Design House Stockholm in Stockholm.

When I visited them on this trip, Design House Stockholm were just on the point of moving out of their main store at Smålandagatan 16 because they now have a large double-height display area on the lower ground floor of the department store Nordiska Kompaniet generally known as NK. The store is on the north side of Hamngatan, just to the west of the old shop.

The other traditional department store in Stockholm, Paul Urbanus Bergstrom, on Hötorget, west of the Stockholm Concert House, was founded in 1882 and is usually referred to as P.U.B.  There is an extensive household and furnishing section on the third floor by R.O.O.M. and the second floor of the department store is being remodelled for a large area to be taken over by Habitat.

exploring Östermalm in Stockholm

From the west end of Strandvägen several major streets run out at an angle including Birger Jarlsgatan, Nybrogatan and Sibyllegatan with many exclusive shops and galleries. Here you can find specialists in mid-century furniture such as Modernity at Sibyllegattan 6. Further north the interior and furniture shop Asplund at Sibyllegatan 31 is certainly worth a visit to track the most recent trends in design.

Norrgavel, further out at Birger Jarlsgatan 27 is the shop founded by Nirvan Richter. Here you can find beautifully crafted furniture with simple uncluttered lines. Many of the pieces, including glass-fronted cupboards and chairs with high, curved rail backs, are painted in distinctive muted colours with a subtle matt finish.

Richter believes completely in sustainability and brings to modern furniture production the idea of seeking spiritual values in design rather than following fast-changing trends. 

If looking at all this good design leaves you tired, hungry and thirsty then the Östermalm foodhall or Saluhallen on the west side of the large square called Östermalmstorg, is well worth seeking out. Here you will find coffee shops, fresh food stalls and bars.

Svenskt Tenn and Malmstenbutiken in Stockholm

If Esplanadi and the flagship stores for Marimekko and Artek are a good place to start when exploring design in Helsinki then the comparable starting point to explore modern design in Stockholm could be Strandvägen. 

Streets of large, expensive and ornately-fronted apartment buildings were laid out to the east of the old city around 1900 forming what was then a new area called Östermalm. Strandvägen is the southern-most road of this area and follows the north shore of the part of the harbour known as Nybroviken, the road continuing east as far as the bridge over to the island of Djurgården.

Svenskt Tenn at Strandvägen 5 is a major design shop that was opened by Estrid Ericson in 1924, initially to produce good but affordable pewter - the name means Swedish Pewter. The Austrian architect Joseph Frank (1885-1967) joined the company in 1934. In Vienna he had opposed the major movement to produce large apartment buildings in the city and had designed a number of small, simple and functional houses or villas. Before joining Svenskt Tenn he had designed five villas in Falsterbo in Skane, in southern Sweden (below Malmo) with flat roofs, balconies and terraces creating a clear link between simple, informal interiors and the gardens around the villas. For Svenskt Tenn he produced designs for textiles and furniture that reflected this approach with clean bright designs in strong colours inspired by plants and flowers. Svenskt Tenn exhibited at the World Exposition in 1937 and again in New York in 1939 and has maintained since then World-wide recognition for the quality of their products.

Carl Malmsten (1888-1972) was almost the same age as Frank. He was a furniture designer and took a strong position against the move towards functionalism in architecture and furniture design in the 1920s, believing instead in traditional craftsmanship (slödjd), apprenticeships and work on co-operative projects. His reputation was established by 1916 when he designed furniture for Stockholm City Hall and then was commissioned to design furniture for the Royal family. He established two schools for furniture studies - one on the Island of Lidingö close to Stockholm, now part of the University of Linköping, and the other, Capellagården on the island of Öland in Vickleby, for courses on textile design, cabinet making, furniture making and horticulture. The Malmstenbutiken at Strandvägen 5b (so immediately next to Svenskt Tenn) has a wide range of furniture and textiles from a number of designers but also sells classic designs by Malmsten such as the Sofa Nya Berlin that Malmsten produced for the Swedish Embassy in Berlin in 1958. 

Artek 2nd Cycle

It is easy to walk past this Helsinki gallery and shop at Pieni Roobertinkatu 4.

There is an archway in a line of shops and a very steep and dark ramp that leads down to the entrance. Part of Artek, and just two blocks south of the main store but, more significantly, just one block north of the design museum, the two stores could not be more different physically. The main Artek store is bright, spacious, sharply clean to reflect the style and quality of the products. 2nd Cycle is a series of irregular basement rooms and spaces that are piled high with furniture - basically storage on display - but here perhaps is the soul of the furniture company.

That sounds stupidly melodramatic but I spent some time here looking at the furniture  and other items and discussing design with Antti Tevajärvi, a member of the staff. As we talked, local people and tourists wandered in to buy or often simply to indulge in a little nostalgia and exchange stories about pieces of furniture they own or had once owned.

At 2nd cycle, the store takes back old furniture by Artek that is no longer wanted or, often, where the original owner has died and their home is being cleared. There is just one proviso … the pieces of furniture should be returned with their back story. Who bought the furniture and why and when and what has happened since. Many of the pieces are clearly repainted and have later covers or cushions but that is all an essential part of their story so, before being sold on, the furniture might be cleaned and if necessary repaired but no attempt is made to strip back to an original appearance.

In an earlier post I recommended a film profile about 2nd Cycle that was made for Monocle design magazine. All I can add for myself, now having visited 2nd Cycle, is that this gallery and shop shows that not only should good design for mass-produced pieces have an important place in our lives but that well-made and well-designed items have an ongoing place in our lives. The finest pieces here are of museum quality and, as part of an Artek archive, they are of real significance in the history of design but, equally, the less well-preserved pieces, scratched or chipped or worn,  reflect their important place in the real lives of real people.

Artek 2nd Cycle

LoKaL

LoKaL at Annankatu 19, just west of The Old Church in  Helsinki, was opened about a year ago by the photographer Katja Hagelstam. It is a simple but very elegant space that is a gallery and cafe ... the 72% art 28% coffee mentioned in an earlier post.They have a commendably ambitious programme of exhibitions, normally changing monthly, to show the work of Finnish craftsmen, photographers and furniture makers. The present show is entitled Element and is the summer exhibition that focuses on “different elements in Finnish nature.” 

The space appears to have been a shop but the aim is to create displays that are intimate as if they are in a home. There are just two rooms so you sit on furniture that might or might not be part of the exhibition to drink coffee, the coffee cups are taken down from shelves above what appears to be a normal kitchen unit but comes from a local maker and the tiles behind the sink were commissioned for the gallery. Throughout there is a sense of humanity and subtle humour ... or perhaps not so subtle for a notice above the sink points out that “everything is for sale unless it speaks” ...

In terrible danger of sounding like a travel guide, I would say that LoKaL is the one gallery in the Design District that you should not miss.