Nordic Design

Nordic Design. The Response to the Bauhaus 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.

Contents: Foreword – Tobias Hoffmann; The Questions to the Answer – The Bauhaus and German Functionalism from the Perspective of Nordic Countries – Tobias Hoffmann; Made in Finland – The Paradox of Native Modernism – Fabian Reifferscheidt; The Stockholm Exhibition 1930 – The Swedish Reception of German Functionalism – Atli Magnus Seelow; Swedish Modern – The Triumphal March of Swedish Functionalism – Julia Hartenstein; Danish Traditionalism – More Functionalist than the Bauhaus? – Christian Holmsted Olesen; Design for All – Design for Daily Life. Playing, Living and Working from a Nordic Perspective – Anna Grosskopf; Utopian Land – Breaking with Nordic Functionalism – Nils Martin Müller; Appendix.

Text in English and German.