As if the imminent opening of Oslo’s Edvard Munch museum wasn’t exciting enough, now there’s a new furniture collection to shop with it!
Following the announcement that Vestre would produce a furniture series for the opening, the museum ran a national competition to find the best designers to collaborate with the furniture brand. After searching high and low, in 2017 it was announced that Andreas Engesvik and Jonas Stokke’s designs had won. Now, together with Vestre, they present a collection consisting of two benches and a chair.
The collection itself combines strong design with beautiful colors and shapes, making it a perfect fit for the Vestre family who are known for playful bold designs, and a fitting tribute to Munch – an artist said to have inspired the Fauvists, famous for their bold use of color.
Although Munch’s most famous work is The Scream, it is the work produced in his later life – filled with brightness and joy instead of the darkness so often felt in his earlier pieces – that must have formed the basis of this happy-making collection.
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The Munch collection is a masterclass in simplicity as each piece consists of only three elements: a steel frame, a steel mesh, and wool textile pillows. All three elements have properties that enable function and while adding to the design of the furniture. The metal parts have been welded together and galvanized, making the collection robust and even approved for outdoor use – we would expect nothing less from a company like Vestre, who for 70 years created social, sustainable meeting places for millions of people and sustainable furniture with a lifetime guarantee against rust. The collection comes in three special colors, created especially for the collection by Norwegian color producer Jotun.
If you were to draw a Venn diagram of Munch, Vestre, Engesvik, and Stokke, this collection would sit in the middle. Made with values shared by all and containing elements brought by each individual – democratic design, a celebration of Nordic values, minimalism that is at once beautiful and practical, heartfelt use of color – it’s a true collaboration.
The entire collection will be viewable at the Munch Museum in Oslo, which will open to the public in the fall of 2020. Vestre will also be producing all the furniture for the museum.
Header image: Norwegian Precence, photo by Lasse Fløde and styling by Kråkvik/D’Orazio
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