
How Scandinavian design took over the world - pmcpinto
http://www.curbed.com/2016/3/23/11286010/scandinavian-design-arne-jacobsen-alvar-aalto-muuto-artek
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pietro
The association to the welfare state is complete bogus. Every last item of
furniture in that article is from before the welfare state started its
expansion in Scandinavia. Sweden and Denmark had lower taxes than the US until
about 1960.

What Scandinavian designers offered at the time was something entirely
different: International modernism in its purest form. The architects of the
time, most notably Arne Jakobsen, were heavily inspired by German and American
modernists. They were just better at it.

Jakobsen designed most of his chairs for a skyskraper in Copenhagen that's
essentially a copy of Lever House on Park Avenue in NYC, and his mania for
designing every last item in the skyskraper mirrored that of Mies van der
Rohe, a German-American. At the time, it was considered "American" by Danes.

If there's anything special about Scandinavian design, and I believe there is,
it's the constant search for purity.

There's not a single period in Scandinavian art history since the Protestant
reformations of the 16th century that isn't dominated by the search for
purity. Even baroque art from Scandinavia is strangely cool. It just happens
to in vogue today, and since we practiced for centuries and it's engrained in
our culture, we're very, very good at it.

Culture is much deeper than whatever political currents dominate a country at
one partical point in time.

~~~
jernfrost
I don't think the welfare state is just about taxes. National maternity leave
in Norway e.g. was introduced in early 1900s, something which still doesn't
exist at a national level in the US. The problem is that people conflate
welfare states with socialism. Nordic countries have been very pro market and
free trade focuses from early on, but that has always been combined with more
active government policies towards the ills of society than what has been
found in the anglo-saxon world.

Even back in the 1500s Scandinavian countries were markedly milder towards
criminals than e.g. Britain which always had a much harder stance towards
crime. So just like design, the philosophies that underly the welfare state
has been there a long time.

It is just that in later years, especially in e.g. Norway with its oil wealth,
the welfare state system has become a lot more visible, due to the amount of
money available to expand it.

~~~
esbranson
Please compare US states to EU states. If we're going to compare US vs. EU or
Norway versus Montana, the EU and Scandinavia don't stack up so nicely.
Constitutional differences make sociopolitical and cultural comparisons
difficult enough.

While it's true that paid maternity leave doesn't exist at the US level, it
does exist at the state level. California, population 39 million (versus 26
million for all EU and non-EU Nordic states) offers maternity & paternity
leave since circa 2002.

And yes, states with criminal jury trials have traditionally been much harder
on crime than Scandinavia. The US population growth rate has been incomparable
to Scandinavia's, and the immigrants have by and large not been homogeneous in
culture nor orderly. And when you're judged by such peers (as versus the
king's nepotistic and political appointments, as in Scandinavia), the
judgement can be quite harsh.

~~~
aguy50
I don't want to be rude and I didn't post it. I'm just posting this here so
you can get a reply.

Your comment was placed on /r/shitamericanssay

>
> [https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitAmericansSay/comments/4c6xpr/ha...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitAmericansSay/comments/4c6xpr/hackernews_please_compare_us_states_to_eu_states/)

~~~
esbranson
Is the discussion in English?

But on a serious note, that my comments make it onto what I assume would be an
anti-US (anti-"American") subreddit is ... meh. This is the Internet. It is to
be expected.

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barney54
15 years ago, when I was in my mid-20s, I didn't understand why people where
so excited about IKEA. Then I went to a normal American furniture store. The
traditional American store was terrible. The furniture was ugly and expensive
with none of the clean lines of IKEA. That's when I understood for the first
time the genius of Scandinavian design.

~~~
massysett
I think people are excited about IKEA because it's inexpensive, comes in a
flat box, and can be taken home right now. Furthermore, I bet IKEA has clean
lines not for the sake of clean lines but rather because clean lines can be
made inexpensively and packed into a flat box.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
A furniture store near me went into administration recently. Some of its sofas
cost north of £10,000.

They looked a lot like IKEA sofas, and the rumour was they were sourced from
the same factories and made from similar materials, but offered in a wider
range with a hint of extra trim - mostly nicer looking feet.

~~~
gherkin0
> They looked a lot like IKEA sofas, and the rumour was they were sourced from
> the same factories and made from similar material

I was always under the impression that Ikea designed and sold all of its own
designs. Is it really a place that sells mostly desirable private-label goods
from 3rd parties, a-la Trader Joe's?

> but offered in a wider range with a hint of extra trim - mostly nicer
> looking feet.

My bother was telling me last weekend about
[http://www.prettypegs.com/us/](http://www.prettypegs.com/us/). Apparently
there's an ecosystem developing around Ikea furniture to provide that.

Also, to completely change the subject. I recently learned that all the
Philips-looking screws on Ikea furniture are "Posidriv" screws _not Philips_
and you need special driver for them, because a Philips driver will likely
ruin them.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives)

~~~
imtringued
Why don't they just include the correct screwdriver with the furniture? It's
only going to cost them like one or two dollars and will likely increase
customer satisfaction.

~~~
nickez
"Every" screwdriver kit you can buy in Sweden is very likely to have both PZ
and PH included.

~~~
cdcarter
And many American sets will come with Pozidrive now. I believe including the
$9.99 "FIXA" tool kit you can get at IKEA checkouts.

------
chestnut-tree
Somewhat related: if you're in the UK, the BBC is currently airing a three-
part documentary series called Art of Scandinavia. The series focuses on
Norway, Denmark and Sweden.

It's available to watch on iPlayer (for UK residents only)

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0745j6m/episodes/guide](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0745j6m/episodes/guide)

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Spooky23
Two answers:

1\. Cheap.

2\. After two devastating World Wars, people wanted to discard the past. Clean
functionality inspired by aircraft represented a modern, better future.

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nerdponx
Someone was desperate to put that pun into print

