Möbelarkitekt på 1930-talet : om inredningsfirman Futurum och hur en ny yrkesgrupp etablerar sig

Sammanfattning: The home and its design were a topic of great interest in Sweden during the 1930s. A new, independent profession—that of the furniture designer—began to establish itself. A study is made of the professionalisation and training of furniture designers. SIMS, the Swedish Association of Interior Architects and Furniture Designers, was founded in 1933 to assert the professional identity of furniture designers and to safeguard their interests, e.g. in matters of copyright. A full study is made of SIMS' activities in this connection. Furniture design was also variously influenced by master-carpenters, furniture manufacturers and building architects. A brief investigation has been made of the training of these groups—or their lack of it—and their achievements, above all during the twenties and thirties, in order to clarify relations between them and the furniture designers. The 1930s saw the rise of many small firms of interior designers which disseminated and elaborated Functionalist ideas from the Stockholm Exhibition concerning the design and furnishing of the home in a softer, brighter and more comfortable style. Futurum is a typical example. It was founded in 1934 by Margareta Köhler, one of Sweden's first women furniture designers, and the artist Marie-Louise Idestam- Blomberg. Later on the weaver Harriet Uhlén also became a partner. Futurum designed and sold furniture, soft furnishings, carpeting and other interior design products, and textiles and carpets were also imported from a number of European companies. Futurum's main idea was the creation of functional, appropriate, beautiful and pleasant homes adapted to the customers' true needs, not for entertainment and formal occasions. A close study is made of Futurum's implementation of these ideas through exhibitions and interior designs for private homes and public buildings, as well as the company's production of specially adapted interiors for children.