Storängen Design

An interview with interior designer Eva Köhlqvist and restaurant manager Josefine Ström-Sundén
2 min 24 sec video [in Swedish]

The chair makes our guests feel a bit chosen.

Josefine Ström-Sundén
Restaurant manager

Matbaren Restaurant, Stockholm
A long lasting interior by Ilse Crawford

Mathias Dahlgren and Ilse Crawford have one thing in common: they don’t cheat. When Dahlgren began preparing to design his future restaurant, Matbaren, he invited the British Crawford to Sweden to study the country’s design culture and history.

– Ilse was here six or seven times. She knew very little about Swedish design and interior design history the first time, so we went around and looked together. We went to the Nordic Museum, checked out building preservation stores, and visited many of Sweden’s classic restaurants.

He wanted to show his own image of Swedish peasantry, an image quite far from what was then – in 2007 – presented as a quintessentially Swedish style, which shortly afterward got the label ”light and fresh.”

– I didn’t recognize myself in that. To me, it wasn’t genuine. It didn’t look at all like where I came from. It did not resemble my grandmother’s home or my parent’s house.

Authenticity is essential to Mathias Dahlgren. That’s why the chef and the interior designer agreed not to create a travesty, a new environment made to look old.

– Restaurants could attract guests for sixty or seventy years. Today, a restaurant concept hardly lasts more than five years, and the industry seems set on that. Is that a success? My parents built a house in 1970 and didn’t change the kitchen once. They bought one cheese slicer and used it their whole lives.

When Dahlgren and Crawford had finished their survey, they met in London to summarize their ideas and suggestions. On one of Crawford’s lists was ”Storängen, by Mårten Cyrén”.

– I had never seen the piece of furniture before, and I was startled because I knew Mårten. We lived near each other, used to meet on dog walks in the neighborhoods, and socialized a bit. Now, he suddenly showed up here with a spindle chair that fit perfectly with our thoughts on the interior design of Matbaren! I wanted a genuine feeling but with a twist.

Matbaren is approaching its twentieth anniversary. And Storängen stands just as tall, proud, and striking as in 2007. It catches your eye immediately, and many guests, regardless of nationality, ask to be seated right there, like in a cocoon, alas not wholly shielded. Like the kitchen in Dahlgren’s childhood home, the chairs have a natural place here. They are part of the Matbaren experience as a whole.

– None of our Storängen chairs have broken yet. Some maintenance comes naturally. But replace them? Why would we?

Explore the chair even more.

Stand By Me
Tailored clothing for a wooden body

”What would you like to do?” The question came from Carl Cyrén, to Margot Barolo and Mia Cullin. They had become acquainted through another project and had come to talk about Storängen Design.

– Carl was simply curious about what we thought was missing, both on the market and in Storängen's range. We quite quickly came to the conclusion that we wanted to explore the idea of a piece of furniture being a ”body” that can be dressed. So we thought of designing both the body and giving it custom-made clothes.

Early in the process, Barolo and Cullin began bouncing and testing their ideas on Storängen Design’s network of craftsmen and suppliers.

– As designers, we need to understand both the possibilities and the limitations. How far, for example, can you tweak a turning without compromising the construction or making the production step a bottleneck.

The fact that Storängen Design is led by designers is also a great advantage.

– Carl and Mårten Cyrén are very receptive and showed us great trust. We had a very tight dialogue, and spoke the same language.

During the work, some clear principles emerged.

1. Suitable for both contract and home.
2. Easy to move and change.
3. The frame is the body of the furniture.
4. The upholstery is the garment of the furniture, which can be put on and taken off.
5. The wood should be visible.
6. Traditional craftsmanship and good materials.

The design duo made a number of sketches, which were then reduced, clarified and became the modular system Stand By Me. Its three parts – Corner, Straight and Footstool – can be combined in countless ways. And when you also factor in that they can be dressed, undressed or re-dressed. The possibilities are endless. Yet Stand By Me will always look like Stand By Me. That, if anything, is design quality.

Sparbankernas Bank
Bank Headquarters

Imagine walking behind the scenes and seeing that an equally dazzling performance is taking place on the other side of the curtain. Here, at Slussen in Stockholm, there has always been life and movement. Especially in recent years, when the historic, clover-shaped traffic circle was demolished and is soon to be replaced by a completely different idea. But now let’s leave Slussen and look beyond the hustle and bustle, the cyclists, and the car traffic at the intersection of Hornsgatan and Götgatan. The block is called Jupiter Större, and on its other side lies an eleven-story jewel designed by architects Ahlgren, Olsson, and Silow, completed in 1963. Here, Sparbankernas Bank had its headquarters until 1992. After that, new tenants moved in, including Murman Architects, who took care of the fantastic executive floor at the top of the building. Most of the interior remained untouched since the year of construction, featuring wonderful doors and oak wall panels. The slanted windows give a sense of an elegant artist's studio rather than a residence for strict bankers.

Or, as Hans Murman describes it:

– It is not a ”rational” building, but a beautifully adapted work of art placed among other significant structures. And the executive floor is the crown jewel. The architects AOS were very driven and surely knew that the bankers would appreciate beautiful solutions, even if they had to pay the price for them.

The executive floor, which with Murman Architects as a tenant actually became something of a studio, was a perfect fit when Storängen Design came to photograph their collection a couple of years ago. The space, the surfaces, and the fine materials create what appears to be a simple trick: they are chosen and designed with meticulous precision that is both felt and seen, while managing to subordinate themselves and highlight the furniture. In reality, it is anything but simple; it is as challenging an art form as designing a beautiful dress that enhances the wearer rather than itself, or crafting a typeface that makes the words more beautiful.