Scandinavian Modern Glass and Steel Sconce by Gunnar Asplund for ASEA, 1940s

Born in Stockholm in 1885, architect-designer Erik "Gunnar" Asplund is celebrated as the godfather of functionalist design in Sweden.  

After studying painting at Stockholm’s Royal University College of Fine Arts (1905-09), Asplund’s avid interest in architecture led him to attend the Stockholm Free Architecture School and to open his own practice. His early architectural works represented a pared-down neoclassical style, which was inspired by several class trips to Greece and Italy (1912-14). Exemplary of the romantic, Swedish Grace movement, his Scandia Cinema (1922-1923) and Stockholm City Library (1924-1928) emphasize geometric simplicity and clarity of form. Asplund’s Senna Chair (1915) was specifically designed for the library.

It wasn’t until the last decade of his life that Asplund became a major proponent for the functionalist style, when he was appointed Chief Architect of the watershed 1930 Stockholm Exhibition, organized by the Swedish Society for Arts & Crafts and credited with introducing modernism to Swedish society. Asplund’s contributions to the fair, including his Paradise Café and Entry Pavilion, presented a machine aesthetic couched in socially democratic ideals and optimism about the future.

Other designs in Asplund’s repertoire include the Villa Sturegarden in Nykoping (1913), the Gothenburg Courthouse Extension (1913-37)—which aptly shows his transformation from neoclassical to functionalist architecture—and the Skogskyrkogården Woodland Cemetery in Stockholm (1915-1940, with architect Sigurd Lewerentz). The latter was declared a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site in 1944. His best known furniture designs include the tubular steel Karmstol Side Chair for Nordiska Kompaniet (1931); GA-2 Armchair for Nordiska Kompaniet (1931)—later for Källemo—and the Gotebor Chair designed 1934-37 and produced by Cassina from 1983.

Following the success of the Stockholm Exhibition, Asplund became a professor of architecture at his alma mater. He passed away in 1940. Asplund’s life and work served as inspiration to a number of Scandinavian design luminaries, such as lifelong friend and mentee Alvar Aalto, as well as Erik Bryggman and Arne Jacobsen.

An acronym for Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget (in English, the “General Swedish Electrical Limited Company”), ASEA was a Swedish manufacturer of electrical products and industrial infrastructure. While broadly known for the more large-scale parts of the catalog—e.g., steam turbines for power plants, high-speed locomotives for passenger railroads, etc.—ASEA endures in hearts of design lovers for their midcentury interior lighting collections produced in collaboration with venerated designers like Gunnar Asplund and Hans Bergström.

Formally founded in 1893 by Ludvig Fredholm, ASEA was established in industry-friendly Västerås, a central Swedish city with favorable access to railways and hydroelectric power. The company spent its first decades exclusively producing generators and motors for partner Jonas Wenström’s “three-phased” electric power systems, a revolutionary first variation on what is now the most common method used by electrical grids worldwide to transfer power. Although this kind of heavy equipment would form the basis of the company’s 20th-century output, in 1911 ASEA began to develop more lightweight products, including lighting fixtures for the Swedish home.

Its production most prolific from the 1930s through the 1960s, ASEA’s lighting design spanned desk, table, floor, and wall lamps, as well as chandeliers, pendants, and other ceiling lights. While many of ASEA’s lighting designs remain unattributed, there are notable exceptions: Lisa Johansson-Pape’s opaline-glass Onion series, for instance, for which Johansson-Pape was awarded the gold medal at 1954’s Triennale di Milano. Other standout series include Svend Aage Holm Sørensen’s five-armed chandelier (ca. 1950s) and Space Age-style table lamps (1950s); and an array of brass pieces by Hans Bergström, who, while heading Ateljé Lyktan for three decades (1940s, through the 1960s) contributed widely to the ASEA catalog.

ASEA persisted in the Swedish lighting industry until its merger with the Swiss company Brown, Boveri & Cie (BBC) in 1988, which resulted in the ABB group.