St. Annen-Museum, Lübeck (DE), until 23.8.2020
Nordic Design deals with Nordic countries’ reaction to the Bauhaus and the German modern age. The late 1920s saw a new design form celebrating its first successes across the Nordic countries. Finland’s singular living conditions had an equal influence on the new design vocabulary alongside the postulate formulated in Sweden: ‘Beauty for everyone’, or the Danish preference for handicrafts.
The respective characteristics of the Nordic countries gave rise to a highly autonomous interpretation of functionalism. It was not the avant-garde form that stood in the foreground, as was very often the case in Germany, but the tailored solution to any given task. Through this, Scandinavian functionalism succeeded in becoming the constant that defined the identity of the Nordic nations.
The exhibition is now on show at St. Annen-Museum, Lübeck, Northern Germany. To mark the exhibition a comprehensive catalogue has been published in our programm.
Beitragsabbildung: Arne Jacobsen, SAS Royal Hotel in Kopenhagen, 1955–1960
Historische Aufnahme, © Jørgen Strüwing / Fritz Hansen