Chairs 2023 by Blå Station

C h a i rs CHAIRS BAR STOOLS EASY CHAIRS SOFAS SOFA SYSTEMS MULTIFUNCTIONAL TABLES OUTDOORS ACOUSTICS STOOLS & BENCHES ACCESSORIES COLLECTION

Why yet another chair? What is the driving force behind making a new chair? What is the common thread? Is the common thread visual or philosophical? We believe that a new chair is not really new unless it contains a new approach to function, construction, production, logistics, materials, industry or sustainability. If it does not have any of these qualities, then it is just “another” chair. A new chair must have an interesting story to tell, a new chair must have answers to all the whys that are asked of it. If it doesn’t have any of those answers, then it’s not a new chair, it’s just “another” chair. Is it beautiful? For us this is not a relevant question, beauty is only in the eye of the beholder. We want to change the world and we love to tell our stories, so here are a few. Enjoy!

Our story… where it all began Blå Stations started around a furniture family designed by the founder, our father Börge Lindau. The series is called Oblado and it was launched in 1986, the same year the company was established. The Oblado series was innovatively intense in several ways. If we take the chair B4, which is available in 3 different heights and different materials, the moulded seat ring is an innovation. Earlier in history, round rings in furniture were either done using a segmented joining structure or made from form pressing two shaped halves that were joined together. These techniques certainly produced visually round shapes – but never completely round or repetitively the same. The round seat ring of the chair B4 is made of 8 pressed halves in birch veneer that are put together like a jigsaw puzzle and then pressed a second time in a ring tool that always gives the same round shape. The second innovation was more of an environmental requirement for industry. – “We don’t want any formaldehyde in the glue!” Börge Lindau said. At that time, in 1986, Sweden had the highest formaldehyde content in Europe, higher than the European approved level. Börge’s demands were taken seriously, and the industry started experimenting, using us as guinea pigs, and after many trials and errors, we produced an adhesive that consisted of only one tenth of the European approved level of formaldehyde. This glue was used for almost 3 decades in the compression moulding industry and today our glue is completely formaldehyde free. We’ve been innovators and influencers from our very beginning...

Börge Lindau | 1986

If… OM means IF in Swedish If we had written a brief to Johan Ansander, or any other designer, and had this chair been presented as a direct result of our brief, we wish our brief had sounded like this: We want a chair, a completely normal chair. We want a chair, as if it had been designed by one of the great masters, such as Michael Thonet or Alvar Alto - if they were alive, active and at their absolute peak right now in the 2020s. We want a chair that is so well balanced that it inspires calm, whether it is standing alone or in a group. We want a chair made of wood, completely made of wood. We want a chair, comfortable for both the eye and the butt. If this chair were the result of our brief - then the designer is a master. Johan Ansander is thus a Master.

Johan Ansander | 2O23

The crumpled paper theory… When designers Jon Lindström and Henrik Kjellberg, the design duo O4i, contacted me and said they had an ongoing project that they knew would interest me - they didn’t catch my interest until they showed me some dented plates. One of the plates had a piece of paper glued to the surface. I asked if this was what I thought it was. Jon and Henrik just smiled. You can crumple a piece of paper and shape it however you like, but you can’t crumple veneer. Therefore our “crumpled paper theory” set out to explore whether the industry’s traditional two-dimensional paper theory could be combined with our three-dimensional “crumpled paper theory”. It was a challenge that did not arouse any enthusiasm in the industry. - “It can never be done, you do understand that, right?” they all said. But shame on those who surrender. After two years of intensive development, persistent persuasion, and a Swedish supplier’s determination not to give up, the Dent chair saw the light of day in February 2013. The impossible became possible. Dent is a real innovation made in plain traditional veneer.

DENT o4i | 2O14

Tradition and Innovation in symbiosis If we remove the back of the chair for a short while - we have a completely traditional chair with four legs, a seat and... well, let’s concentrate on the back. The designer Marcel Sigler has designed a unique back, like a flat band caught in a movement, which really shouldn’t be possible to mould rationally and industrially. In order to achieve this industrially complex shape, an advanced four-part compression moulding tool is required, and the result must be without visible tool meetings. Impossible according to those whom Marcel previously contacted. But, when we saw Still Life, the feeling came immediately - we must solve this, we want this chair! So together with a Swedish manufacturer who wanted to succeed as much as we did, we came up with not only a beautiful chair, but a joyful and very comfortable chair, at the right price. Still Life when tradition and innovation meet in one chair.

STILL LIFE Marcel Sigel | 2O2O

The unmaking of democratic design... This was the title of a project with Röhsska Design Museum and the artist Fredrik Paulsen for the reopening of the Museum in 2020. IKEA (a well-known Swedish brand) has seized the certainly misleading expression “democratic design” and transformed it into “low prices in flat boxes”. Our Dad, the founder of Blå Station, always said that design is no flipping democracy. Röhsska design museum knew this, so we were given the task, together with Fredrik Paulsen, to create a unique chair presented in a flat package. The easiest part was giving the chair its name, because obviously it would be called Röhsska. The hardest part was to make each individual chair unique. This became a long and tough process, where we tried to get talented craftsmen who had great professional pride and the ability to varnish hundreds of chairs in exactly the same way.... to instead invent a new way, deliberately and without aggravating or expensive measures, to varnish several chairs at the same time with the result that no one chair resembled the other and of course without compromising the quality of any of them. Röhsska when playfulness is allowed to control the process.

RÖHSSKA

Fredrik Paulsen | 2O19

The “what if” theory… During iSaloni in Milan in 2002, Fredrik Mattson, who was then a young design student, received a product brief, a brief that many designers get, but very few succeed with. It read: - We want “a completely ordinary chair made in a completely new way”. After a couple of tries, Fredrik finally said that he and a fellow student, Stefan Borselius, had drawn an aluminium chair they wanted me to see. My very first reaction was that we didn’t want an aluminium chair. But Fredrik said I couldn’t say no until I saw it, which caught my interest and raised my expectations. A month later and ONE PowerPoint slide into a long presentation, the decision was simple - “We must do this!” Convinced, confident and with the world’s innovation at hand, we went to the industry expecting a standing ovation. The experts, technicians, and engineers on site, all of whom knew their material and process, kindly but firmly informed us that our chair was not possible to produce. It could have ended there and then, but since we were still visiting, we were given a tour of the factory and before we left that day, I laid out my proven “what if” theory and said - “But... “IF” it could be manufactured, how would we do it then? What would the obstacles be?” That question sparked new interest. Five long months later and after the chair had been discontinued due to four failed attempts, we presented the chair Sting at SFF 2003, a true innovation. The whole long, exciting story is available to read online.

STING

Stefan Borselius & Fredrik Mattson | 2OO3

With simplicity as a driving force How far can I simplify the construction of a chair? This was the question I asked myself when I was commissioned to design a chair for an Asian-inspired restaurant called Momang. Simplicity both for the eye and in the way the chair is constructed. Can I use only a plank and a band to produce a chair? A plank of 4 meters sawn into ten parts of three different lengths, plus an 8-meter-long textile band cut into twelve parts of two different lengths. Can this become a chair that can handle all the functions required? Can it pass the viewer’s judgment, be comfortable enough, stand the test of time and positively affect the spatiality? We leave that for you to judge. Momang, so simple a child could have drawn it.

MOMANG

Johan Lindau | 2O21

Starting by questioning Why are almost all regular chairs upholstered with a thin, barely load-bearing foam? That was the question we asked ourselves. The reason we came up with, was that all these chairs have a first version without padding, such as a moulded wooden seat, and for various production-logistical, inventory-intensive and seat height-related reasons, the result is a 10mm thin non-load-bearing foam that is glued to the surface, and bang - there is the upholstered version. We decided to skip the first version and go straight to the padded version and work on the comfort for both short and long periods of sitting. The product brief the designer Stefans Borselius had received, ahead of our 25th anniversary in 2011, was to interpret Blå Station’s design signature. He chose to make Dundra into a whole furniture series, just like our father, Börge Lindau, did in 1986 when he designed his furniture series Oblado. Dundra when comfort is the focus.

DUNDRA Stefan Borselius | 2O11

A tribute For the 90th anniversary of the Bauhaus, the city of Berlin selected a group of young German designers and asked them to come up with a design which interpretated and celebrated the Bahaus movement. The city of Berlin provided the designers with a small studio, and then it was just a matter of getting started. Usually, the interpretations become manifestations of the bent steel tube that made its way into the furniture industry with the help of the Bauhaus movement. This was after they discovered how the German aerospace industry figured out how to shape sand-filled steel tubes against precise matrices to get perfectly bent tubes. The cold hard material now became soft and pliable through its bends. The designers Osko+Deichmann went a different way with their interpretation, and fantasized about how steel tube furniture would have looked if the Bauhaus group had instead introduced steel tubes on furniture at the time when changing direction on tubular steel was done by making a “kink”, which is a strong and precise guidance on the pipe, so that it can be bent easily. Horribly ugly in everyone’s eyes. But with the help of Osko+Deichmann, the ugly has instead become a decoration. We received an invitation by post to an exhibition in a Milan church in the spring of 2008 - on the front was a chair made of kinked steel tube. Still holding it in my hand, I called Osko+Deichmann in Berlin and said: - “We want to do this!” -“It’s not possible to do it,” was their answer – “There is no industry and no machines that can make kinks.” Therefore, the entire Straw, Superstraw and Superkink family has become a craft and a tribute to the Bauhaus. At the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin, they have chosen to have Straw in their outdoor café.

SUPERSTRAW

Osko + Deichmann | 2O1O

A meeting and a thought Wandering slowly down the middle of the aisles at Salone Satelite in Milan curiously scouting for designers whose thoughts I can relate to, I have many inspiring conversations with young designers from all over the world when suddenly I see a small red moulded chair in a 9 square meter booth. I wait to have a chat with the designer. I say “Hello, I think I can help you solve the problem that I think you were trying to solve.” The designer Luka Stepan doesn’t seem impressed with my offer, and wonders how? But I don’t want to tell him that, so we decide to talk after the fair. A few months later, our development begins to solve a new way of press moulding a large sweeping mould. We invest in the tools convinced that we have found a new innovative way to press-form laminated veneer into an impossible shape by cutting away the material that would cause problems in the process. There was a loud bang inside the factories after each failed attempt and we finally realized that we weren’t going to succeed. This time the material won. But the shape of the chair was too good to leave to its fate. Luka Stepan was given the task of turning the small wooden chair into a larger, more comfortable chair with an upholstered seat and back. It’s Lucky when failure can’t stop us. Lucky generation 2 will be launched in 2024 – watch out!

LUCKY Luka Stepan | 2O18

Probably the most comfortable shell chair in the world When designers Osko+Deichmann tried to stack chairs with swivel stands, they found that by removing material from the seat to make room for the swivel stand’s pillars, they solved the problem. What we didn’t know at the time was that this “gap” was ultimately a perfect solution to many people’s wishes to be able to easily hang chairs on the underside of the table - so you can clean both the floor and the table surface without the chair being in the way. Osko+Deichmann also wanted to push the boundaries and try to produce a shell chair with the best imaginable comfort. Which, in our opinion, they succeeded in doing.“ An ordinary chair where what is missing becomes the innovation.

GAP 4

Osko + Deichmann | 2O19

KAFFE

Thomas Bernstrand | 2O14

Take a break and find out more! This was just a few of our stories, we have many more to tell and even more chairs in our collection. Like this chair for example, Kaffe, which means coffee in Swedish, and there is always time for a “fika” whether it’s indoors or outdoors. 61

STOOLS, CHAIRS & BARSTOOL

Hövding

Beplus

Sparta

Bimbo

Dent Wood

Dent

Röhsska

Dent Stack

Honken X46

Innovation C

Boo

Gap-4

Poppe 46

Superstraw

Kaffe

Dundra

Dundra-4

OXO

Bobby & Bobban

Momang

Still Life

Sting

Lucky

Dundra

Combo

POUFES, ARMCHAIRS & SOFAS

Lucky Lounge

B25

Åhus

B26

Pinzo

Åhus 3-seater

Maximus

Honken

Honken XL

Max

Dent Lounge

Honken X40

Honken S

Wilmer

Poppe 40

Superstraw

Superkink

Pocket

Oppo

Pucca

Dundra

Puppa

Jackson

Big Talk

ARMCHAIRS, SOFAS & BENCHES

Bob

Bob Hide

Bob Wide

Bob Job

Bob Solo

Bob Biz

Bob Corner

Bob Home

Bob Home Wide

Bob Betong

Oppo Betong

Dunder

Polstergeist

Unit

Qvarto

Visp

Rut

Koja

Park+

Prinsessan

TABLES

Couronne

Bucket

Bubble

Kaffe

Bit

Jack

Jackless

Jackless Wood

Turn

Plybord

Pinzo table

OXO

Combo

Size

Ping-Pong

Ping-Pong Mini

SOUND ABSORBERS

Ginkgo

Gaia

Arc

Photo & Form

BLÅ STATION AB Box 1OO. 296 22 Åhus. Sweden Tel: +46 (O)44 24 9O 7O info@blastation.se Showroom: Sandvaktaregatan 17. Åhus Badvägen 2c. Åhus Södermalmsallén 36. Stockholm Fabriksgatan 7–9. Göteborg Slussgatan 10. Malmö