A little more Bruno Mathsson trivia

Before leaving the topic of Bruno Mathsson, I ran across some photos and information I missed somehow when writing my original post. What I found is so quirky and interesting that I just had to do one more short post about him.

In the previous post, I mentioned that Mathsson had won a scholarship, which led to a trip to an exhibition in Stockholm and meeting with Gustaf Munthe that changed his ideas about design completely and forever. Here is the chair that won him the scholarship and trip.

Baroque chair made by Mathsson in his father's shop
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A year later, he received a commission from the hospital in his hometown of Värnamo, Sweden. This chair demonstrates how drastically his design direction had already changed. He decided to create the chair without traditional springs and upholstery and instead used plaited webbing for comfort. (Mathsson is said to have done considerable research on the perfect seating curve, even sitting in a snow drift so he could study the imprint of his body.) The design was so controversial that the hospital staff, who had nicknamed the chairs the Grasshoppers, stored them away out of sight...until Mathsson became famous.

Grasshopper chair
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In the mid-1930s, Mathsson discovered the physical culture, a fitness and strength building movement that began after the Industrial Revolution, when a popular idea began to gain acceptance that the middle class was suffering from "diseases of affluence." As part of his fitness regimen, Mathsson added a porch to his studio and constructed a bed with horsehair insulation for the new addition, so he could sleep outside from May till November.

Outddoor sleeping porch
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In the original post, I focused mainly on Mathsson's furniture designs, but I probably should have included some of his architectural designs, which are amazing, especially considering that he was self-taught. Many of the houses he designed were constructed almost entirely of glass of his own patented design. Called "Brunopane," it consisted of a triple-glazed window with gaps insulated by nitrogen.

Kungsor, Sweden - 1954
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Daneryd, Sweden - 1955
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Another view of summer house
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