Description

The intention was never to produce a basket but the item that the designers presented explains the origins of the Wick Chair and the values that it conveys. The wood-chip basket is the sort that we recognized from Swedish artist Carl Larsson’s romantic watercolor of his daughter Brita which has become emblematic of what Christmas is supposed to look like in Sweden. At the time that it was painted, it was a modern interpretation of tradition. That the Wick Chair is plaited in a similar fashion to the wood-chip basket signals the design tradition from which it springs, but the plaiting can equally well be seen as an aspect of the designers’ elegant solution to a difficult practical problem.

This pragmatic, no-nonsense approach, has been directly inherited from the country-craft tradition but it is also a solution that gives the Wick Chair its unique shape. Another challenge that Malmvall and Ståhl faced was how they were to plait the seat without covering everything with glue.

One positive effect of the interweaving is that at the point where the pieces of wood lock each other they can be glued on both sides. True, Jesper Stahl and Karl Malmwall had simplified the shape to its absolute essence so that the Wick Chair only has one interwoven element on each side, but the shape has many intentional functional aspects. It is the trials and the insights that follow that have made working with laminated wood so rewarding.

Wood, whether it is solid or laminated as in the slender back of the Wick Chair, is more pleasant than plastic which is often experienced as either too cold or too hot. This is yet another reason why the chair has found a home with Design House Stockholm which is a firm that unites bold design with materials that are associated with the Scandinavian design tradition which, in turn, is renewed when the avant-garde is successfully united with tradition.

Features