Sköna Hem

Skonahem

Sköna Hem · Portraits & interviews · 3 pages

Article scan

Loading article

INTERIOR DESIGN | AMONG ART AND OWN CREATIONS

Steal the style!

CLASSIC

Tommaso starts from a well-functioning base and furnishes the home with design classics and traditional furniture such as the grand piano.

COLOR

Don't fear splashes of color. Tommaso makes his home stand out and feel personal by adding clear shades of yellow, red, and green.

DETAIL-RICH

Many paintings, meter after meter of well-filled bookshelves, and characterful items in every corner. Tommaso's home never gets boring as it is full of things to look at.

1. Mirror, 6,395 kronor, Gubi. 2. Table Pli, 74,490 kronor, ClassiCon/Nordiska Galleriet. 3. Lithograph, Persona II, 4,800 kronor, Ed Art. 4. Lamp, price on request, Alexander Lervik for Saas Instruments. 5. Cowhide, Koldby, 1,485 kronor, Ikea. 6. Daybed, Grid, 9,496 kronor, Petite Friture. 7. Grand piano, 158,768 kronor, Yamaha. 8. Armchair Marc Krusin Side Chair, 8,250 kronor, Knoll/Nordiska Galleriet.

78 RUM HEMMA NR 03 2018

Latest in the line of more unusual challenges, an elevator for private homes. Swedish Aritco produces it.

Green is lovely, that too. A new release for Ateljé Lyktan is the lamp Tricolour in green and clear glass.

On Alexander Lervik's varied CV is the clock Bikupa, for Tingest 2016.

Alexander Lervik celebrates 20 years as a designer.

THE LIGHTBRINGER TAKES THE ELEVATOR UP

To most people he is known as the master of light, but few designers sit on as many (self-designed) chairs as ALEXANDER LERVIK. The latest experiment? An elevator. In addition, a book about the path toward the light.

By ANNA EKDAHL

What is your strength as a designer?

– My advantage—and disadvantage—is that I am so broad and fearless. Everything is fun, so I throw myself into most things. I have done lots of projects over the years that were completely insane, because I had a need to express myself in different ways. On the one hand, I am not a given anywhere, but on the other hand, not excluded either.

And that can result in a passenger elevator, for example. How did that come about?

– The company Aritco announced a competition, so I entered and competed against the top industrial design firms, and won. I haven't worked with such complex projects before, with so many safety regulations, and it's fun to wrestle with things you don't already know inside out. One safety measure in this type of elevator is that the button must be held down for the elevator to move; I turned that into a design element so that the elevator is now controlled with a steering wheel that you turn to the floor you want to go to and then keep pressed with your whole hand. It is a completely new type of solution for residential elevators that can change the industry. A big advantage, and the reason I won, I think, was that I have worked as an architect, and I saw the need through the eyes of an architect, rather than those of a pure industrial designer.

03 2018 sköna hem 41

The lamp Knot for Finnish Saas Instruments, a playful LED novelty in several colors.

Scandinavian light senses, written by Elin Lervik and with photographs taken by Brendan Austin.

The armchair Mr Jones, classically elegant for Adea.

The picture hanger for Absolut Art gives the home gallery a boost in a straight direction.

The light swing for Saas Instruments, image from the book Scandinavian light senses.

Spring news for Design House Stockholm, the lamp Luna with hanger Kosmo. All electronics are concealed in the cord = sleek without a canopy!

"I have done lots of projects over the years that were completely insane"

For instance, it then has "Lervikian" lighting?

– Yes, you should be able to adapt it to your home and create different lighting schemes for different moods. I wanted to make a piece of furniture—not an elevator. You should want to have it because it's beautiful, too. But that idea is new; people have to get used to it. Many are provoked by the fact that a home elevator is a luxury item, yet at the same time it is a product that allows people to stay in their homes for perhaps 20 more years. Or serves as an everyday aid with strollers, laundry baskets, and bicycles... This is a new type of product, for a population that is living longer and longer.

At the same time, you and your wife Elin have worked on a deeply personal book, Scandinavian light senses. It is about your career, with poster-worthy beautiful pictures of your design projects taken by photographer Brendan Austin, but also about your anxiety, your recurring winter depressions—and how they have affected you?

– My wife is a writer and came up with the idea to do the book. In the beginning, I was unsure whether it was getting too close, but our relationship was completely decisive in the end. She was able to draw the story out of me. And yes, I share more about myself than I usually do, but at the same time it felt important to show what the anxiety has meant to me.

What has it meant?

The anxiety before the dark is the absolute reason why light plays such a big role in my design. My mother, who is a sculptor, always said: "You have to accept that you are like this; it comes with your creative brain." The imagination that fuels the anxiety is also something I need in order to create; it benefits me in my work now that I know how to push the right buttons within myself. But it was tough before I learned, with the help of therapy, to keep it in check.

Tough in what way?

– As a young designer, I was contacted by one of Japan's leading design companies to come there and work. A huge opportunity. But it didn't work out. I couldn't bring myself to get on the plane. So I had to tell it like it was, and even though I am private in many ways, I have never been that way regarding my anxiety in particular. That's just part of being human, I don't mind sharing that. As Elin puts it in the book: Back then, Midsummer Eve morning began with me dreading that the days would start getting shorter. In hindsight, it's completely crazy to live like that!

What is happening right now?

– I have never designed so many lamps, and have never been so pleased with the result either, as with the ones being launched now for Ateljé Lyktan and Design House Stockholm, it's really great! And I'm looking forward to a major retrospective exhibition, In the Mind of Alexander Lervik, which opens at Kulturhuset in Stockholm on April 6.

Do you have a dream project?

– Often, when you least expect it, they appear. I'm scaling back a bit on interior design to have time to dedicate to other things. What I know for certain about the future is that I don't want to grow as a company. It should still always be my pencil drawing the object.

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