Svenskt Tenn

621 - The Svenskt Tenn (Swedish Pewter) suite

Svenskt Tenn AB is an interior design company founded in 1924 by Estrid Ericson, with the functionalist Josef Frank as the prominent figure. The company started on a small scale, making and selling pewter objects in a small shop in Smålandsgatan in Stockholm. By 1927, however, the company moved to the present address in Strandvägen.

The Stockholm exhibition in the summer of 1930 gave Estrid Ericson the idea to open a department for furniture and rugs. New types of furniture, designed by Uno Åhrén, Gunnar Asplund and Björn Trädgårdh, were made in small workshops especially for Svenskt Tenn.

The immigration to Sweden of the Viennese functionalist architect, town planner and designer Josef Frank, in 1933, began the productive collaboration with Estrid Ericson and Svenskt Tenn. Josef Frank was a non-dogmatic functionalist, who created conditions for a friendly, colourful and tolerant environment without stringent stylistic demands. As a result of several major exhibitions in New York, Paris and San Francisco during the thirties, the Svenskt Tenn style became a model for “Swedish Modern.”