Swedish Birch and Satinwood Armchairs by Carl Malmsten for Bodafors, 1930s, Set of 2

Going against the grain of his contemporaries, Swedish architect-designer Carl Malmsten (1888-1972) was a strong critic of functionalism and a proponent of traditional Swedish craftsmanship. Malmsten was also a devoted educator who sought alternative approaches and methods to developing hand-produced products.

Malmsten was born in 1888 in Stockholm, going on to study at the University of Stockholm, graduating in 1908. He then gained practical experience through a carpentry internship at the Nordic Museum and at Skansen (1909-1910). From 1911 until 1916, he worked in various architectural firms.

In 1916, at the age of 28, Malmsten established his studio in Stockholm, working as a freelancer in furniture design. That same year, he won a furniture competition for Stockholm’s new City Hall. With the exposure of his furniture designs, he soon became a highly sought after designer, and in 1917 exhibited alongside esteemed Swedish architect-designers by the like of Gunnar Asplund and Uno Åhrén at The Home Exhibition. Malmsten’s lifetime goal was to create practical furniture that would developed the user’s well-being and create total harmony within the space the furniture occupied.  With a fine eye for detailing, he was meticulous in his construction, often focusing on the direction of fibers, as well as refining and preserving the structure of each piece.

Sometime between 1904 and 1973, he designed for the world-famous NK Department Store in Stockholm. During in the 1920s, Malmsten was commissioned to create furnishings for a number of highly important clients, including the prince of Sweden, Gustaf VI Adolf in the Ulriksdal Palace (1923), Stockholm’s Concert Hall (1928), The Swedish Match Company (1928), Waldorf-Astoria in New York (1930), and the House of the League of Nations in Geneva (1934). Most of his furniture was named after the towns or clients who commissioned them.  

In 1930, Malmsten founded the Carl Malmsten Furniture Studies in Stockholm, which later became its own department at the Linköpings University in 2000, offering educational courses in furniture design, cabinetmaking, furniture conservation, and furniture upholstery. In 1957, Malmsten established his second school, Capellagården, on the island of Öland in Vickleby. Today, the school offers courses in textile craft and design, cabinet making, furniture design, interior carpentry, ceramics, and organic horticulture.  

Over the course of his illustrious career, Malmsten was awarded with several prestigious awards including the Prince Eugen Medal for design in 1945. Notably, he was a member of Svenska Slojdforeningen (Swedish Society of Industrial Design). He advocated the traditional role of the home as a place for gathering and leisure, believing that the rationalization of the home according to functionalist principles was a perversion of these import roles.

Malmsten passed away in 1972 on the island of Öland in Sweden. Malmsten continued to work, designing and teaching until his death.  It is believed that the designer left behind more than 20,000 sketches and detailed drawings of his designs, which today are considered an exclusive cultural heritage and are part of the Siv and Carl Malmsten Memorial Foundation. Malmsten’s contribution to Swedish handicrafts and education is still remembered today, as he wished for future generations to have the opportunity to nurture their innate creative desires.  His dedication and passion to Swedish design has afforded him, alongside Bruno Mathsson and Yngve Ekström, the title of one of Sweden's best known furniture designers.

Known by a variety of names—the AB Bodafors Chair and Furniture Factory, AB Svenska Möbelfabrikerna i Bodafors, Svenska Möbelfabriken AB, to name a few—Bodafors was one of Sweden’s earliest incubators for the application and subsequent renown of Scandinavian functionalism in furniture design. At one point, with over 400 employees, it was the largest furniture manufacturer in the Nordic region. The name is drawn from the town where the company is located, in the Småland region of Sweden.

Founded in 1918 via merger of small-scale Swedish manufacturers—chiefly, the Bodafors-based factories of brothers John Albert (1859-1913) and Frans Oskar Zeinwoldt (1860-1924) along with Värnamo Möbelfabrik and Carl Fredriksson's Träförädlings AB in Katrineholm—Bodafors established its main production in its namesake town, a particularly strategic location for furniture manufacturing that offered immediate access to railways, forests, and hydroelectric power.

From this factory, alongside one smaller facility in an existing space at Värnamo, Bodafors quickly cultivated a highbrow prestige countrywide, producing (mostly) series of practical furniture for an upper class Swedish minority. The company was awarded a Gold Medal at the landmark Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes held in Paris in 1925 and, later, by extensive representation at the paradigm-shifting Stockholm Exhibition in 1930, which opened the world’s eyes to the Scandinavian approach to modernist architectural and interior design.

From the 1930s onward—rather in contrast to comparable Swedish furniture manufacturer Nordiska Kompaniet—Bodafors began modifying its design focus toward the expanding Swedish middle class. The 1950s and ’60s proved to be a particularly prolific era for this kind of production: Practical, well-made, competitively priced seating, tables, and casegoods—many of which were crafted in woods of teak, mahogany, and oak—became hallmarks of the Bodafors catalogue at this time.

Personnel-wise, Swedish interiors and furniture designer Axel Larsson (1898-1975) lays claim to much of Bodafors’ design innovations and industry imprints across the company’s lifespan. His tenure as the company’s head designer, from 1925 to 1956, was notable for the role he played in pioneering mass production processes, as well as for design commissions such as the Gothenburg Concert Hall. Bodafors also culled much of its stature from outside collaborations with Swedish functionalist modernist design heavyweights. Carl-Axel Acking, Bertil Fridhagen, Carl Malmsten, Bruno Mathsson, Josef Frank, Axel Einar Hjorth—all produced for Bodafors in the midcentury, with many involved (e.g., Malmsten, Einar Hjorth) at the very beginning of their expansive, influential careers.

Beyond practical goods for private homes and clients, Bodafors also manufactured furniture and furnishings for commercial offices, cinemas, schools, restaurants, hospitals, and ships. The company remained a heavy player in the Swedish design game until its dissolution in 1971, when it was absorbed into the Mälmo-based DUX furniture group.