Alexander Lervik

Press / 1998

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A stool for each decade

Alexander Lervik has visualized design history.

He has seized upon the stools of the 90s. They are his favorites, the forms, seen from his own point of view.

"Stools do not have the same stability requirements as chairs, they are temporary seats," he says.

The designer Alexander Lervik is exhibiting ten different stools, each representing its era, at Forum för Form.

The inspiration from the first decade of the turn of the century Alexander Lervik found primarily in designers such as Charles Rennié Mackintosch and his Art Nouveau style. The forms are simple, geometric with their graphic expressions. At the museum stands the elegant stool in black lacquered wood.

Next to it competes the stool in clear-lacquered birch and oak. The forms are airy, the stools were meant to take up as little space as possible.

"The collaboration between architects, artists, and industry was in full bloom. Construction was standardized and mass production became the new manufacturing method," says Alexander Lervik.

A completely new style takes shape, it is the 20s. A bicycle handlebar served as the model for Marcel Breuer's stool "Wassily". The stool was named after teacher Wassily Kandinsky. Alexander Lervik's stool in chromed steel tubing and black lacquered plywood. Alvar Aalto's bed from the 30s served as the model for the tomato-red stool with side panels in chrome and bent metal. "It could just as easily be black, it is not the color that is decisive, it is the form," says Alexander Lervik.

The designer Alexander Lervik is exhibiting ten different stools, each representing its era, at Forum för Form.

The war forced many designers to work in the war industry. Meanwhile, in the 40s, various products were designed for the defense forces instead of designing furniture. Before the end of the war, hardly any new furniture arrived.

"The 40s stool equals a sense of function and new materials. The inspiration comes primarily from Bruno Mathsson."

The stool in clear-lacquered beech is... it will surely go down in history, it already has, for that matter.

50s design is characterized by animal and nature forms: the ant, the swan, the egg. Alexander Lervik's stool looks like an insect with wings, an upturned-nosed bumblebee.

Here in molded oak and steel tubing, seat in polyester and fabric.

The orange, bottom-friendly stool in 60s style is also stretch-friendly with its frame in plywood and polyether.

"The space era with all the space styles arrived explosively."

Interest in design decreased during the 70s. Alexander Lervik personified the idea for his round stool in chromed strip steel and clear-lacquered wood from the movie "Saturday night fever" with John Travolta.

PHOTO: HELEN PE

80s design. Ugly, many think.

Alexander Lervik loved to build with Lego. The 90s stool in bright colors, like blocks or pieces to puzzle together.

"The 90s equals cramped, cheap, and environmentally friendly," says Alexander Lervik.

"Tio pallar - tio Årtionden." Alexander Lervik at Forum för Form, Skeppsholmen. Opening today, Wednesday, at 11 AM. Open: Tuesday–Sunday 11 AM–6 PM. Until 2 August.

Susanna Hellberg

English translation of the original article. Text read from the scanned original; small transcription errors may occur.