Scandinavian Design in the Doll’s House Yvette Wadsted Ulf Beckman Michel Hjorth Arvinius FÜrlag
Scandinavian Design in the Dolls’ House
Arvinius FĂśrlag
SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN IN THE DOLLS’ HOUSE
YVETTE WADSTED ULF BECKMAN MICHEL HJORTH
I T T T
CONTENTS
Preface Introduction The 1950 s The 1960 s The 1970s From the 1980 s to 2000 PERIOD furniture 1950 – 2000 Swedish dolls’ house manufacturers BIBLIOGRAPHY PICTURES GuiDE
7 9 15 59 103 139 191 215 241 242
Preface This book describes a piece of Scandinavian design history in miniature, namely Sweden’s unique production of dolls’ houses, dolls’ house furniture and interior furnishings in modern style, which has achieved worldwide renown and is prized both by collectors and by children at play in many countries. It also describes how changes in the Scandinavian and Swedish world of design have been mirrored and responded to in miniature. Some of the furniture is directly inspired by well-known Scandinavian designers, but most of it is based on anonymous prototypes from firms no longer in business, so that the miniature versions we see here are all that remains of their output. The convoluted history of the four companies which created this Scandinavian world in miniature between 1950 and 2000 has been unravelled through a good deal of detective work, coupled with a modicum of guesswork. Over the years I have been in contact with many collectors and have everywhere met the same delight and appreciation of the high-quality design of these objects.
Sue Morse in Virginia, USA, has gathered collectors from all over the world into a We
Love Lundby Club. In one of her letters to me she writes: While I was growing up in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, I played with Renwal, Ideal, Pasco and Marx plastic dollhouse furniture. At the very same time, Scandinavian children were amusing themselves with Lundby, BRIO and Micki Gemla dollhouses, furniture and accessories. Much later in my life, in 1996 to be exact, I was first introduced to Lundby miniatures. It was love at first sight! That revelation launched me into a quest to acquire Lundby houses and furniture, and to research the company. Even though Lundby furniture was designed primarily to reflect Scan dinavian decor, many of the furniture groupings reminded me of my parents’ home and my own early choices of furniture when I started out as a new bride in the 1960s. Now, decades later, I can relive those early days of my life through my hobby of collecting Lundby dollhouses. A selection of the material in this book was exhibited between October 2004 and February 2005 at the Museum of Childhood, London. Entitled Home Swede Home, it was described as follows in the accompanying folder: Do you remember when pine and Formica became the norm and linoleum floors were a must in the kitchen? Bold geometric patterned wallpaper dominated all our homes from the 50s through to the 70s. See it all in miniature in this display of Scandinavian dolls’ houses and furniture that reflect the Nordic way of life that has influenced interior design throughout the world.” Yvette Wadsted 7
The 1950 s The first of the post-war decades was a time of intensive development. With prosperity rising, people could afford to buy houses of their own and were moving into modern houses prefabricated by Swedish companies like Myresjö-hus, Boro-hus and many others besides –. houses with bathrooms and modern kitchens which had those excellent Swedish standardised fittings, with all cupboards and units fully compatible. The kitchens were of course equipped with all the new appliances – fridge, freezer, washing machine, mixer, toaster etc. And here, in the new suburbs of the expanding welfare society, the children in the average family had rooms of their own, containing more and more toys, and the toy industry picked up speed. But at this time Lerro with Per-Hugo Börnfelt was still the only manufacturer of modern-style dolls’ house furniture. Dolls’ houses having always mirrored the big adult world, doll’s house furniture had not turned modernist at the beginning of the 50s. It was only in architect and suchlike circles that the modern was comme il faut. In the average home the new departure first became apparent in wallpaper patterning and soft furnishings, on lamps and light fittings, but also in utensils and ornaments. Although in most cases the furniture was traditional, a lamp, an ashtray, a vase or a casserole showed that the household was moving with the times. And for the children’s rooms, modern was par for the course – the 50s were also the début of the teenager, complete with jeans, Coca-Cola and rock music. In their rooms you sat in butterfly armchairs and played the new EPs on small portable record players while drinking Cola from plastic glasses.
So although Modernism can be said to have begun in the decade following the First
World War, dolls’ houses were still being furnished in traditional 40s style with padded seating, either big, puffy sofas and armchairs with ball feet, or more slender chairs with bentwood arms. The upholstery fabrics were sober monochrome or else discretely patterned in pale nuances. The furniture manufactured by Lerro/Per-Hugo Börnfelt was chosen from that to be found in most people’s homes, much of it from Ikea, which had now begun to invade households with low-price articles. There is an interesting similarity between Ikea and Lerro: both were started at the close of the 1940s, and both were mass producers of modern furniture – Ikea for assembly in the home, and Lerro for assembly by home workers. Just like the real-life home, the doll’s house could be papered with smart geometrical patterning – most often consisting, in fact, of pieces of full-scale wallpaper. 15
In March 1950 a Swedish standard was defined for kitchen fitting units, based on the optimum kitchen working height, and this was complied with by all manufacturers of whiteware and kitchen units, with manufacturers and building contractors obliged to follow suit if state subsidies were wanted. The doll’s house kitchen had Swedish standard fitted cupboards of the kind to be found in all new homes, and the accoutrements of the new affluence –. American vacuum cleaners and bulging refrigerators of plastic – to go with them. There was an Anglo-American touch to the bathroom units as well. The kitchen furniture included chairs of simple design, some reminiscent of architect Gunnar Asplund’s back-rest model from the 1920s, others were akin to models by Carl Malmsten. It was not until the 1960s that modern design moved into the detached houses and flats of the folkhem and, simultaneously, into the dolls’ house.
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SWEDISH DOLLS’ HOUSE MANUFACTURERS This is an overview of dolls’ houses made by the three biggest manufacturers – BRIO, Lundby and Micki – between 1955 and 2000. The house models, like their furniture, derived inspiration from the prefab catalogues of real life. Both interior and exterior present details which could be seen in typical working class homes of middle class detached houses of the 50s, 60s and 70s: the spiral staircase, the flat pitch of the roof, the staircase screened off by a wall of vertical wooden slats, or picture windows with no bars, opening “crosswise”, just like their big prototypes. Lundby’s doll’s house, from 1959 dubbed “Gothenburg”, represented a real terrace house in the Göteborg (Gothenburg) region. Today it is made by Micki and has been renamed “Småland”. The bigger and more luxurious houses, such as “Stockholm”, “The Manor” and “Tudor”, are not included here. They represent the dream of a life beyond Scandinavian everyday existence which falls outside the scope of this book, but they must be fun to play with! Exhibitions of Swedish dolls’ houses and dollhouse furniture were curated by Yvette Wadsted in London 2004 at the Museum of Childhood (V & A) entitled “Home Swede Home” with funding support from the Swedish Institute and Micki AB, and in 2007 at the American Swedish Institute sponsered by Micki AB. Each doll’s house had been fitted out to a particular theme, describing typical and important events of the Swedish year. There was a house for Midsummer festivities, with a maypole outside in the garden, and another house prepared for a student matriculation party, with the newly matriculated student arriving in a flag-bedecked open car. A third house was set for a birthday party, with a big long table and lucky dip in the garden, while in a fourth the dolls were celebrating Christmas, with the electrified Christmas tree turned on in the living room, the sauna heated and a mirror pool provided for the sauna bathers to cool off in.
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1957
Electrics, doors and spiral staircase of spruce wood, cardboard banister, red-painted roof.
Left/right end walls identical, red brick.
Was also obtainable decorated.
Left/right end walls identical, windows framed.
Straight spruce wood staircase.
Left/right end walls identical, pale red brick.
Straight spruce wood staircase like that of the NK villa.
1957
The NK villa, electrics, spruce wood doors, roof painted green.
1958
Electrics, flat roof painted metallic green, pink chimney.
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1955
BRIO/Lerro, no electrics, spruce wood staircase and doors, red-painted roof.
Left end wall with small bathroom window.
Right end wall painted white, spruce wood window frames.
Spiral staircase, spruce wood /mahogany, red cardboard banister with black dĂŠcor.
Left end wall yellow brick, right one with small bathroom window.
Left/right end walls identical.
Straight wooden staircase, painted white.
1956
BRIO/Lerro, with/without electrics, spruce wood door, cardboard tiled roof.
1963
BRIO two-storey house with electrics.
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THE AUTHORS Yvette Sebton Wadsted is a textile artist who attended Konstfack (the Swedish University College of Arts, Crafts and Design) in the 60s, and whose work is represented in a number of government buildings. She is interested in miniatures, antique dolls, bric-a-brac, old textiles and, not least, gardening. Ulf Beckman (1944 – 2010) was a journalist and author and for 15 years Chief Editor of the journal Form, previous to which he helped found the Swedish home furnishing magazine Sköna Hem. Michel Hjorth is a Swedish photographer and graphic designer based in Stockholm. His latest book is Whisky – Japan, co-authored with Henrik Aflodal, formost among Scandinavian whisky experts.
Preparations for the doll’s house exhibition in progress in Yvette’s home. Photograph by Pia Ulin, first published in the book Nesting, 2010, by Cilla Ramnek and Pia Ulin. 239
Thank you, Elisabeth Lantz, for lending materials and dolls’ houses. Thanks to Museum Curator Johanna Finne, who assembled the exhibition at the Museum of Childhood/V &A, London, and to Micki Leksaker AB, for defraying the transport expenses. Thanks to Susan Hjelm, who assembled the exhibition at the American Swedish Insitute (ASI), Minneapolis, and to Micki Leksaker AB, for defraying the transport expenses to the USA.
Idea: Yvette Wadsted Text: Ulf Beckman & Yvette Wadsted Photographer: Michel Hjorth Graphic Design: Gabor Palotai Design Editor: Stina Sjöwall Translation: Roger Tanner Printed and bound by Elanders Fälth & Hässler, Värnamo, 2011 Published in 2011 by Arvinius Förlag AB Box 6040, SE -102 31 Stockholm, Sweden Tel +46 8 32 00 15 Fax +46 8 32 00 95 info@arvinius.se www.arvinius.se ISBN 978-91-85213-17-7
Copyright Yvette Wadsted & Arvinius Förlag AB, 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, digital, photographic or mechanical or otherwise without the prior written permission of Arvinius Förlag AB.