Treasures! - Swedish Stuff

As a follow up to my last post:

I went to a thrift store close to the movie theater I was at recently. Of course I did. I can’t pass up the opportunity to treasure hunt. I said goodbye to my friends and high-tailed it over there.

I dig around for a while, and am honestly a little disappointed with the stock. Then I head to this sort of added-on room where they typically only have clothes, just to look at anything non-clothing they may have put in there, and see a cute little table and chair in the corner. The table…eh. The chair…oh yeah. Great form, obviously well made and in fantastic condition. I flip it over, see the original metal tag and MADE IN SWEDEN. No question, I pick it up, pay and leave.

Once I had it home, I had to start finding out it’s story. I hadn’t heard of the name on the tag, ”Akerblom”.

Enter, the trusty laptop.

• Looked up the name/word: Dead Hockey player
• Tried harder: Doctor
• Intrigued, I look further: Doctor Bengst Åkerblom studied human posture and the sitting position. DING DING DING!!!!
• Look up Åkerblom & chair: find a slim selection of instances. A museum and 2 hits that are chairs for sale. Range in price from $75 – 4,000 Euros.
• Try to find out more about Doctor Bengst Åkerblom: Strolled around the net and ended up at http://www.designaddict.com/  There was a thread on Åkerblom and his chairs. To quote user “Koen” on Design Addict, “You will not find Bengt Åkerblom in most publications on Scandinavian design, because he is not a designer.” Koen goes on to say, “He is...or was a researcher. His particular interest was the seated position. He is generally credited for having invented the lumbar support in chairs, which is most often referred to as the Åkerblom curve.” Dr. Åkerblom wrote a pivotal (for the subject) book named Standing and Sitting Posture (1948). So, who designed and built this chair? At this point I had no idea. Personally, I love a mystery.
• Continue to search: Searching random combinations of keywords, letting www.Google.com translate Swedish websites, image searches….then…I wake up and smell the coffee (as it were)
• I reread the Design Addict thread: I actually read the entire thread, and realize that other people have already asked the questions I’m trying to find answers to. Yay for paying attention (eventually)!

So, the designer of the chair was Gunnar Eklöf (1909-1963). He worked with Åkerblom, to apply his research on seated posture, introducing a new design element, e.g. the Åkerblom (or Lumbar) support curve, to chair designs. This chair, as well as others in various iterations, were produced in limited quantities (each is handmade) by NK-bo (translates NK-Habitat)in the latter part of the 1940’s and possibly early 1950’s. Given the scarcity of the chairs in the marketplace, obviously not many were produced.

It’s important to note that Gunnar Eklöf is actually a well known and respected Swedish furniture and interiors designer.

To sum all this up, I found a great chair made from solid Swedish Walnut, for a ridiculously low price. I did some research and found out about it, learning loads of stuff on the way. I love the look of the chair, and with just a tiny bit of cleaning up and care, it will outlast me. …and it’ll look good doing it.