Scandinavian design
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Scandinavian Design emerged in the 1950s in the three Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) as well as Finland as a design movement characterised by simple, uncomplicated designs, minimalism, stylisation, functionality, and low cost mass production.
The Lunning Prize, awarded to outstanding Scandinavian designers between 1951 and 70, was instrumental in both making Scandinavian Design a recognized commodity, and in defining the profile of Scandinavian Design.
The idea that beautiful and functional everyday objects should not only be affordable to the rich and the powerful, but to all, is a core theme in the development of modernism and functionalism, but is probably most completely realised in post-WWII Scandinavian Design. The ideological background was the emergence of a particular Scandinavian form of social democracy in the 1950s, as well as the increased availability of new low-cost materials and methods for mass production. Much Scandinavian Design makes use of form-pressed wood, plastics, anodized or enamelled aluminium or pressed steel.
The concept of Scandinavian Design has been subject to many scholarly debates, exhibitions and marketing agendas for the last fifty years, but many of the democratic design ideals that was the central theme of the movement have survived and can be found resonant in contemporary design work by Scandinavian and international designers.
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