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Monica Förster: Design Doyen
By Wessel Stoltz
sweden
with
love.
By Wessel Stoltz
Close to the Arctic Circle is a small region
that has gained fame for its huskies, reindeer, sleighs and a certain Mr. Claus who,
as legend would have it, set up shop there.
Lapland, however, has, apart from its
wildlife and mythological figures, also produced another denizen that came bearing
gifts…
Monica Förster was born in 1966 and
grew up in the very north of Sweden. After
school she studied at both Beckmans College of Design and Konstfack – Sweden’s
two most prestigious design schools - and
soon after gained international recognition
for her ability to create modern, functional designs with a poetic twist. It was her
ability of applying functional design to an
array of different objects and fields that led
to her now being recognised as one of the
top names in the Swedish design industry.
In 1999 she set up her own studio and
attracted the interests from the likes of
Poltrona Frau, Alessi, Cappellini, Offect,
Swedese, Tecno, Volvo and Whirlpool.
Because of her interests in developing new
methods, material combinations and technologies, her design products vary from
a pouf for Poltrona Frau to lighting for
Lightyears and jewellery birds for Svenkst
Tenn to an excavator for Volvo.
Amidst attending several awards ceremonies (she has after all won the Swedish
Designer of the Year award twice in a row
and have been exhibited in some of the
most prestigious museums in the world
THE
such as Moma NY and the V&A Museum here
in London) Monica also found the time to write
a book on her design endeavours.
Launched during the Stockholm Design Week
in 2013, the book is not only a retrospective of
Förster’s work, but also a celebration of spending
15 years in the industry.Entitled Lateral Thinking
Förster reflects atypically on her design projects
saying that instead of prizing a certain aesthetic or construction method, her studio is largely
governed by a focus on social consciousness.
“My work is about creating jobs for people,” says
Förster. “It’s as basic as that.” As an example of
her ethos she cites her collaboration with Poltrona Frau. “Poltrona Frau is based in Tolentino, a
very small town by the Adriatic sea. If that company disappeared, it would be a lot of people out
of work. The village depends on the company
and there are a lot of companies like that, especially in Sweden. Those companies are important
for communities.”
Esedra Pouf for Poltrona Frau
Förster’s aim is to design projects that complement and work with the existing strengths and
identity of a brand. “When I started working
with Poltrona Frau I walked around the factory and looked at all the different skills of its
craftsmen,” she says. “I decided to only propose
projects that would work with those skills. That
kind of knowledge cannot be copied. It’s not like
you can just injection mould something and out
comes the same thing; you can’t clone the knowledge of a person.”
And it’s because of this ethical ethos of Förster
that she is our designer of the month.
Spoon Easy Chair for Offecct
Copyright: Photographer Camilla
Lindqvist
WEATHER
give work the backhand.
Spring: A torrent of
miserable water is
scheduled to stream
out of your face.
PRISMA OFFICE DESKS