5 FEATURES
By Wessel Stoltz
4 FEATURES
For the past twelve odd years, the Stefan
Borselius design studio has been a bit of a one
man show.
And not because of a lack of work to go around,
but rather because the Swedish native prefers
to keep his finger on the pulse, making sure
he adds that personal touch that has come to
exemplify the way in which he works.
One could argue that for Stefan it all started
a hundred and one years ago when his great
grandfather, Hans Nils Nordén, set up his
furniture shop, H. N. Nordéns Möbelaffär, in
Malmö. Being a true craftsman, Nordén was
even commissioned to design a furniture suite
for the Baltic Expo in 1914. One generation
later, Hans Nils Nordén’s son, too, picked up
the skills of a furniture carpenter and became a
master cabinet-maker.
Influenced by his grand- and great
grandfather, Stefan also decided to dabble in
the art of carpentry and started his lengthy
studies that would eventually lead to his
collaboration with some of the biggest Swedish
furniture manufacturers.
press coverage and got Borselius’ studio –
which he started in 2002 – off to a running start.
Stefan likes to do more than just make pretty pieces
of furniture – he looks at new materials and processes
that aren’t used in furniture and see if he can
incorporate them in his new designs. He says, “I think
that comes from my woodworking background. I work
from the ground up, from scratch. So I see every
possibility of the material.”
Since the Sting Chair, the first project Borselius did for
Blå Station, their relationship has gone from strength
to strength and resulted in revolutionary pieces like
the Peekaboo chair; a new kind of wing chair complete
with a pull-down hood and a body made from sound
absorbent material used in car-making (just one in a
long list of pioneering use of material and process in
furniture design).
It was also a forerunner in the now-very-busy market
of breakout seating that offers a spot of seclusion for
individuals to work in.
He studied woodworking for three years before
attending the Steneby School, a craft school
in Sweden, then the Carl Malmsten furniture
school, where he began to branch out from
purely making the furniture and developed a
knack for designing it too. Finally things started
to fall in place when Borselius earned a place at
Konstfack, the country’s best-known design
school.
# D E S I G N E R
Here Stefan met up with Fredrik Mattson – the
man he would eventually collaborate with to
design the Sting Chair. The chair was made
from extruded aluminium, produced in
stretches of 50-60m of sheet material then
“sliced like a salami”, describes Borselius, to
create the virtually seamless seat and backrest.
With its super-slim, lightweight form, refined
details and clever application of a mass
manufacturing technique, it scooped up the
design awards and
Apart from his partnership with Blå Station,
Borselius has also teamed up with the likes of
Abstracta and Skandiform and for our
furniture-loving sakes we hope these partnerships
last a long, long time.