Carl Malmsten Biography
Carl Malmsten, born 1888 in Stockholm, was a Swedish furniture designer, architect and educator of considerable importance in the field of traditional Swedish craftsmanship (slöjd) and known for his aversion to functionalism. Malmsten's career began in 1915, when the results of a competition to design the furniture for Stockholm's new city hall were made known. The jury was surprised to find that both the first and second prizes were awarded to a previously unknown designer. From that moment on, the situation changed radically. The interior of the Council Chamber and other meeting rooms of the town hall became a great success thanks to the intervention of Carl Malmsten, and the furniture is still in use at the Town Council today. Curiously, the splendid writing chair with which he had won the competition never found a place in the building. A short time later, in 1917, Malmsten exhibited alongside renowned Swedish architects such as Gunnar Asplund and Uno Åhrén. In the 1920s, Malmsten became one of the most sought-after interior and furniture designers in all of Sweden, receiving prestigious commissions. The most famous was to furnish a room for Crown Prince Gustaf VI Adolf and his wife Lady Louise Mountbatten in Ulriksdal Palace, on the occasion of their wedding. The architect Ivar Tengbom hired him for projects such as the Stockholm Concert Hall, Ivar Kreuger's Matchstick Palace and the Swedish Institute in Rome. The Waldorf Astoria in New York also called him to create the furnishings for the bedrooms, living rooms and dining rooms. Requests for luxury meeting rooms in banks, insurance companies and in the Riksdag immediately led to Malmsten's name. The turning point came in 1956, with an exhibition at the Röhsska Museum of Design and Craft in Gothenburg, in which Malmsten exhibited for the first time furniture designed for mass production, which soon found space in the homes of the Swedish "People's Houses". Nature was Carl Malmsten's main teacher and source of inspiration, and he transmitted his love for craftsmanship as a teacher in his schools, at the Olofskolan in Stockholm, in Capellagården in Öland and at the Carl Malmsten school in Lidingö, now a branch of Linköping University and one of the country's leading design colleges, simply known as “Malmstens”, where the basic philosophy is still that hand and mind must engage in creative collaboration. Malmsten had a formidable sense of proportion and created furniture that people felt comfortable in and that aroused pleasant sensations. “Neither light, nor eyes, nor people like to hit sharp corners,” he explained. Therefore, all the edges of the furniture had to be smoothed so that they were more pleasing to the eye and touch. Carl Malmsten dedicated his life to the revival and renewal of traditional Swedish craftsmanship, drawing inspiration from the cultural examples of Swedish country houses and rustic styles: furniture characterized by simple creativity, with a feeling for the wood itself, with function in mind and with a high level technical quality.
