Warm and friendly: Scandinavian design is livelier than ever

9 February 2024

Familiar, colorful, and welcoming: it is the nouvelle vague of Scandinavian design which, while remaining faithful to the minimal and rigorous style of its founding fathers, takes on an increasingly warm and friendly guise, satisfying the growing desire for a home that has personality and elegance but who knows how to always be welcoming and open. This trend is evident in the new collections and extensions of existing collections of some of the most recognizable and sought-after Scandinavian brands for home furnishings. In the innovations presented we can read a livelier taste and the desire to get closer and closer to real life and the desire to experience the home in an open and total way. It is no coincidence that one of the themes carried forward in the recently concluded Stockholm Furniture Fair is “crafting the future”: an invitation to imagine a design made by people and intended for people, to be experienced through all the senses and designed to last over time.

Vipp experiments with new materials

At the origin of Vipp is the story of Holger Nielsen, a blacksmith who produced a pedal waste bin for his wife’s beauty salon. It was a great success and soon spread on a large scale, laying the foundations for the company, still guided by a profound knowledge of materials linked to the search for always practical solutions to concrete needs. The kitchen is the environment of choice for its production and this year the company presented a new collection whose modules are covered in extruded anodized aluminum with vertical grooves and rounded edges. The design is highly identifiable, designed for a kitchen to be looked at as well as used. The furniture also extends into other rooms of the house and among the latest innovations presented there is also the Square coffee table: here the use of aluminum returns and characterizes the legs of the table on which the marble top rests in a combination of winning materials.

&Tradition creates a dialogue between classic and contemporary

In 2024 &Tradition presents a series of innovations in which the re-editions of some milestones of the Scandinavian design school are developed alongside completely new and current ideas. This dialogue represents the company’s spirit of continuing the tradition of Danish design without distorting it but projecting it into the present. It happens with the Thorvald outdoor collection by Space Copenhagen: evocative and delicately retro, it is made up of tables of different sizes and chairs or armchairs. Again, for the outdoors, &Tradition presented the Ville collection by Anderssen & Voll designed for an informal outdoor dining area with attention to detail. Among the reissued classics, the AX seat stands out: designed by Hvidt & Mølgaard in 1950, it fully reflects the style of the time while remaining perfect for a current interior. The same can be said of the Wirestool designed by Verner Panton in 1981 but only brought into production today thanks to precious archive research.

Muuto offers soft shades for indoors and outdoors

Welcoming outdoor spaces that are consistent with the interior furnishings: it is one of the points of reference for today’s design that tackles indoors and outdoors with the same care. Muuto reviews the style of furnishings and accessories through the lens of color and proposing a series of realistic and earth-inspired shades, soft and multiple. For the interior it introduces the Arced mirror collection, in two formats intended for the wall or the floor, but also the soft table, inspired by bistro tables to create small breakfast nooks in the home and the Dedicate desk lamp. Moving outdoors, among the novelties presented by Muuto is the Linear Steel collection designed by Thomas Bentzen and characterized by essential lines and bright colours.

Normann Copenhagen focuses on color

Ancient and modern icons are reborn thanks to color: Normann Copenhagen introduces the Krenit bowl, the bowl designed in 1953 by Herbert Krenchel, in a green edition that celebrates its seventieth anniversary. The color is a tribute to the designer’s love for nature, which emerged through a series of archive research in collaboration with his family. Regarding color, Normann Copenhagen expands the collection of Form seats, chairs and stools, with 5 new color options, some neutral, others more decisive, to accommodate the inclusion of this modern icon in contexts with a different style.

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