‘Swedes like generous, personal, lived-in spaces’: The Scandi homeware style that Swedish people love

Scandinavian interior style is not all about pared-back, minimalist living and functional, identikit furniture. Here’s why the century-old Svenskt Tenn idea of abundance, exuberance and “luxe cosiness” is still popular today.

The stereotypical image of Swedish design is of pale wood, neutral, tasteful tones and pared-down, minimalist forms. The origins of this partly lie in Sweden’s espousal of functionalism (funkis in Swedish) in the early 20th Century. The Stockholm Exhibition of 1930, which attracted four million visitors, put contemporary Swedish design on the map, and soon there was a new clean-lined style of design (catchily dubbed “Scandi” by The New York Times in 1970). Meanwhile, Ikea, founded in 1943, has, over the decades, reinforced the stereotype with its stripped-down, functional, affordable furniture.

Yet there’s more to Swedish design than the Scandi cliché. An alternative approach was pioneered by influential store and manufacturer Svenskt Tenn, co-founded in 1924 in Stockholm by sculptor and silversmith Nils Fougstedt and dynamic entrepreneur and designer Estrid Ericson, and partly financed by money inherited on her father’s death. The brand’s 100th anniversary last year was marked by an exhibition, Svenskt Tenn: A Philosophy of Home, held at Stockholm’s Liljevalchs museum. Now a newly published book, Svenkst Tenn: Interiors by Nina Stritzler, explores its story further.
Many modernist designers deemed ornament superfluous and self-indulgent but Ericson unapologetically championed the idea of bringing beauty into the home, believing it was life-enhancing. While growing up in the southern Swedish town of Hjo, she was inspired by philosopher and design theorist Ellen Key, whose 1899 book, Beauty for All, advocated economical, everyday design. “Beauty can everywhere exert its ennobling influence if only people… open their eyes and hearts to all things beautiful,” she wrote in the book. “They must learn to realise that beautiful in life is not at all an extravagance; that you work better, feel better, become friendlier and more joyful if you surround yourself in your home with beautiful shapes and colours.”

Ericson was also influenced by the 1919 book More Beautiful Everyday Things by Gregor Paulsson, who from 1917 was head of Stockholm-based organisation Svenska Slöjdföreningen (Swedish Society of Industrial Design), founded in 1845. From the late 19th Century, Sweden’s traditionally agrarian society became increasingly urban and industrialised, and the society campaigned for improving standards of design in everyday life.

Svenskt Tenn, which means “Swedish pewter”, initially specialised in manufacturing and selling hand-made products in pewter (relatively affordable compared to silver). Today, by contrast, the company is synonymous with its irrepressibly exuberant textiles, dreamt up by Josef Frank, an Austrian-born, Jewish designer and architect, who collaborated with Ericson until his death in 1967.

He and Ericson were on the same wavelength: crucially, they didn’t share modernism’s disdain for ornament. Frank took part in the landmark modernist architecture exhibition, Die Wohnung (German for “The Housing”) – held in Stuttgart in 1927 by the Deutscher Werkbund, a German association of avant-garde architects and designers – and his design for a family home attracted criticism for its rooms, which were decked out with sumptuous, exuberant textiles.