After five years of extensive renovation and modernization, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm’s National Museum of Fine Arts, finally re-opened on October 13, 2018, offering visitors an enhanced experience underpinned by its mission to make art and design as accessible as possible. The same vision has been the driving force behind the museum’s new 300 seat restaurant and café which has taken over three impressive ground floor galleries previously closed to the public.
Conceived as an artistic project, the project gave a collective of designers the opportunity to work together to explore materials and methods, and discover old and new producers, in order to provide visitors with insights into the design process. The result of this collaborative process, which was helmed by Swedish designers Matti Klenell, TAF Studio, Carina Seth Andersson and Stina Löfgren, is NM& - En Ny Samling, a contemporary collection of furniture, light fittings, tableware and other decorative objects that celebrate the unfinished and uncertain in a House already filled with artistic masterpieces.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
Wood carve printing stocks. Cabinet behind the bar. Wood carve prints by Stina Löfgren, Marie Dahlstrand, Finn Öhlund, Annalena Pääjärvi Öhlund. Numbered edition. Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 080: ”Kolonn" vases by Carina Seth Andersson produced by Skruf. Photo by Pia Ulin.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 063: Everyday glasses ”Unda” by Matti Klenell produced by Design House Stockholm. Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 062: ”Sand” tableware by Carina Seth Andersson produced by Design House Stockholm. Photo by Pia Ulin.
The collection’s name, NM& - En Ny Samling, which means “a new collection”, succinctly sums up the project’s ambitious nature but also references the Nationalmuseum’s enormous collection of paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints ranging from the Renaissance to the beginning of the 20th century and its impressive collection of applied arts and design that spans an even longer long period. I n Swedish, ‘sampling’ also means gathering which not only alludes to the restaurant’s social aspect but also aptly describes the process of creating the NM& collection which involved 32 designers and 21 manufacturers from all over the Nordic countries.
This is not the first time that Matti Klenell, TAF Studio, Carina Seth Andersson and Stina Löfgren have collaborated. During 2012–2014, the Swedish designers worked together with Taiwanese artisans to create a series of contemporary objects made with ancient lacquer techniques under the auspices of the National Taiwan Craft and Research Institute. Titled “ A New Layer”, the project went on to foster more international collaborations, the latest of which were unveiled last year under the name "A New Layer II: Crafting Identities / Design Stories from Taiwan".
NM& 062: ”Sand” tableware by Carina Seth Andersson produced by Design House Stockholm. Photo by Pia Ulin.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 033: ”Atelier chair” chair by TAF produced by Artek. Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 034: ”Ateljé” extendable table by Matti Klenell produced by Gärsnäs. Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 080: ”Kolonn" vases by Carina Seth Andersson produced by Skruf. Photo by Pia Ulin.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 012: Lamp ”Putki” by Matti Klenell produced by Iittala. Photo by Pia Ulin.
Similarly to their previous collaboration, the concept of place and origin was at the center of the team’s assignment to design the Nationalmuseum’s restaurant and café, in this case as an assertion of the museum’s “national” character and its mission to monitor and collect design and applied arts from Sweden and the Nordic region. But more broadly, for a designer, the importance of place is manifested oftentimes as a requirement, inspiration, starting point or goal. In a globalized design scene where uniformity is the rule, local can mean unique and the manufacturing location can give distinctive character. Materials such as wood, metal, ceramics and glass are used around the world to make similar artifacts but it is place and tradition that set them apart and give them a distinctive soul.
At the same time, as the design team's collective journeys in Taiwan demonstrated, cross-cultural exchanges can be a force for innovation and renewal. With this framework in mind, the design team travelled together across the Nordic countries, exploring local manufacturing both for research and inspiration. From small scale workshops in Stockholm’s Old Town, to a weaving mill in the Värmland woods in central Sweden, all the way to a glass factory in Häme, Finland, the familiarity of the places they visited was both a blessing and a challenge. As the team confesses, “it is for sure much more difficult to work with your own legacy than to interpret someone else’s”.
What came out of their exploratory travels was a collection of more than 80 entirely new designed objects - each one given an archive code starting with NM& 001 similar to a museum inventory number - grounded in a shared palette of muted colors, eclectic materials and unpretentious craftsmanship. Utterly contemporary and boldly idiosyncratic, they nevertheless evocatively embody the region’s Nordic heritage. As the team explains, ”each product in the NM& collection has a sometimes messy but always well documented pedigree around its origins, and just as we hoped somewhere at the beginning of our journey, the overall final picture of a place, our place right here, right now, is just as motley and unpredictable as we hoped it would be”.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 060: ”Epok cutlery by Note Design produced by Gense. Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 061: Glass tableware by Carina Seth Andersson produced by Skruf. Photo by Pia Ulin.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 039: ”Nisch Sofa” love seat by TAF produced by Fogia. Photo by Pia Ulin.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 001: Chandelier by Monica Backström, Matti Klenell, Ludvig Löfgren, Simon Klenell, Stina Löfgren,
Mattias Ståhlbom, Åsa Jungnelius, Katja Pettersson and Carina Seth Andersson produced by The Glass Factory. Photo by Pia Ulin.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 015: ”Mela” Lights by Matti Klenell produced by Ateljé Lyktan. Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 016: ”Pile” Lights by Matti Klenell produced by Swedese. Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 040: Easy chair by Matti Klenell produced by Larsson Korgmakare. Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 074, NM& 070, NM& 071, NM& 072, NM& 073: Modular sofa by Matti Klenell produced by Offecct. Photo by Pia Ulin.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 036: ”Kavalett” swivel base chair by Matti Klenell produced by Swedese. Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 047: ”Avavick” Stool by Katja Pettersson produced by Swedese. Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 032: ”Bläster” Barstool by Kristoffer Sundin produced by Källemo. Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 037: ”Chapeau” chair by TAF produced by Offecct. Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 038: Height adjustable café table by Afterroom produced by Källemo. Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 051: ”Stoff 1" mobile by Stina Löfgren produced by JR Work Shop. Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 065, NM& 066: ”Husets Linne” linnen table cloths and napkins by Jakob Solgren produced by Klässbols Linneväveri. Photo by Pia Ulin.
NM& 071: ”Väven" fabric by Stina Löfgren produced by Klässbols Linneväveri. Photo by Pia Ulin.
Photo © Nationalmuseum Stockholm.
Nationalmuseum interior view. Photo by Bruno Ehrs.
Nationalmuseum interior view. Photo by Bruno Ehrs.
Nationalmuseum Old Library, interior design by Emma Olbers. Photo by Andy Liffner.
Library Lamp by Front design produced by Zero. Photo by Andy Liffner.
Library Lamp by Front design produced by Zero. Photo by Andy Liffner.
Nationalmuseum interior view. Photo © Nationalmuseum Stockholm.
Nationalmuseum interior view. Photo © Nationalmuseum Stockholm.
Photo © Nationalmuseum Stockholm.
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