Bruno Mathsson

Bruno Mathsson (13 January 1907 – 17 August 1988) was a Swedish architect and furniture designer whose ideas aligned with functionalism, modernism, as well as the Swedish crafts tradition.^[1]

Bruno Mathsson

Biography

Bruno Mathsson in 1950

Mathsson was raised in the town of Värnamo in the Småland region of Sweden, the son of a master cabinet maker.^[2] After a short time of education in school, he started to work in his father's gallery. He soon found a great interest in furniture and especially chairs, their function and design. In the 1920s and 30s he developed a techniques for building bentwood chairs with hemp webbing. The first model, called the Grasshopper, was used at Värnamo Hospital in 1931.^[3]

Edgar Kaufmann Jr., director of the Industrial Design Department at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), collected Mathsson's chairs and included them in several exhibitions in the 1940s.^[4] Kaufmann considered Mathsson's importance in furniture design on par with that of Alvar Aalto.^[5] Kaufmann and his family also had a Mathsson chair at their house Fallingwater.^[6]

Mathsson was also an accomplished architect; he completed about 100 structures in the 1940s and 50s.^[7] He was the first architect in Sweden to build all-glass structures with heated floors. His furniture showroom in Värnamo (1950) was a significant example; it is well-preserved and open to the public today. For his glass houses, he developed double- and triple-pane insulated glass units called "Bruno-Pane".^[8]

He traveled extensively in the United States and was strongly influenced by the solar houses of George Fred Keck. Mathsson's architecture was also influenced by a visit to the Eames House by Charles and Ray Eames in March 1949 just as it was being completed.^[1]

Works

Mathsson's Eva and Mina chairs

Furniture

• Grasshopper (1931)
• Mimat (1932)
• Pernilla (1934)
• The Eva Chair (1935)
• Folding table (1935)
• Paris Daybed (1937)
• Swivel chair (1939-1940)
• Pernilla Lounge
• Jetson Chair
• Super-Ellipse™ table series, with Piet Hein^[9] (1966)
• Annika nesting tables (1968)
• The Karin chair (1969)^[10]
• Milton Swivel chair (1975)

Architecture

Bruno Mathsson furniture showroom, Värnamo (1950)

Kosta Glashus [sv], Kosta Glassworks (1956)

• Bruno Mathsson furniture showroom, Värnamo (1950)
• house at Danderyd (1955)
• Villa Prenker, Kungsör (1955)
• Kosta Glassworks exhibition hall and worker's residences (Kosta Glashus [sv]), Kosta (1956)
• weekend cottage at Frösakull (1960)
  • "one of the most daring examples of his glass houses."^[3]
• Södrakull, outside Värnamo (1965)^[11]