During the fifties and sixties, a substantial amount of Scandinavian-style furniture was produced in Belgium. Some of the more successful designs from 1951 to 1966 are currently on display at Design museum Gent in an exhibition entitled The Scandinavian Touch in Belgian Furniture.

Interior designer Gilberte Claes and interior designer Luc van de Wouwer have curated the exhibition, which focuses on the furniture itself and contrasts designs by Belgian designers next to Scandinavian models. Information, photographs and design drawings give a wider context.

At the 1951 Milan Triennial, Danish furniture design captured the modern spirit of furniture design; following on the work from the early twenties by Kaare Klint (1888-1954) at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen. Through the analysis of historic furniture types, Klint developed a specific design method which reduced furniture to its essential elements, thus creating the basis for Scandinavian Modernism.

The breakthrough of Scandinavian furniture design in the 50s can be traced back to these beginnings. After the second world war, Scandinavian designers and many other European, including Belgian, furniture designers showed a particular interest in ‘modern social furniture’.

In Belgium the term ‘un mobilier populaire adapté’ (‘popular adapted furniture’) became for many designers the quest for the utopian ideal of aesthetic and high-quality furniture for the masses. In 1950 a group of reformist artists and craftsmen created the ‘Formes Nouvelles’ in Brussels. Designers were exposed to the new Scandinavian shapes through specialist magazines such as La Maison, Wonen, Streven, De Linie, Ruimte, De Nieuwe, as well as through international exhibitions.

The Belgian designers favoured ‘simple’ and ‘functional’ shapes with discreet yet elegant design. Modern social furniture is one of the key points of twentieth-century Belgian design and its toned-down modernism displays strong similarities with Scandinavian modernism, both conceptually and formally.

Pieces by Belgian furniture producers such as Van den Berghe Pauvers, Belform, V-Form are shown, as well as work by designer Emiel Veranneman. Van den Berghe Pauvers was very influenced by Denmark at the beginning of the fifties and designer Jos de Mey’s work shows an interest in Scaninavian craftsmanship.

The Scandinavian Touch in Belgian Furniture – 1951-1966 continues until June 06 at Design Museum Gent.

The Scandinavian Touch in Belgian Furniture – 1951-1966

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