Bruno Mathsson

Background

Bruno Mathsson (1907–1988) was a Swedish architect and furniture designer whose ideas aligned with functionalism, modernism and the Swedish crafts tradition. He grew up in Värnamo in Småland, the son of a master cabinetmaker, and after a short schooling began working in his father's workshop, where he became fascinated by chairs, their function and their design.

Signature Style

In the 1920s and 1930s Mathsson developed a technique for building bentwood chairs with hemp webbing — light, curved frames shaped to the body. As an architect he completed about 100 buildings in the 1940s and 1950s and was the first in Sweden to build all-glass structures with heated floors, developing his own insulated "Bruno-pane" glazing.

Notable Works

• Grasshopper chair (1931), Värnamo Hospital
• Eva chair (1935), Pernilla and Mina
• Superellipse™ table with Piet Hein, produced by Fritz Hansen
• Annika nesting tables (1968), Karin chair (1969)
• Furniture showroom in Värnamo (1950)

Legacy

Edgar Kaufmann Jr. of MoMA collected his chairs, showed them in the 1940s and ranked his importance alongside Alvar Aalto; a Mathsson chair stood at Fallingwater.