Setting the tone for Stockholmsmässan was the installation of this year’s Guest of Honor, the British design studio, Barber & Osgerby. Their Triptych in the Entrance Hall was inspired by their idea of Nordic winters, featuring animal hides and sheepskins nestled among some of their latest works. This included their Pilot Chair for Knoll, Tobi-lshi for B&B Italia, and Hotaru Lanterns manufactured by Japanese lantern producers, Ozeki.   

“All the Fun of the Fair” was the concept for this year’s Design Bar by architect, Andreas Martin-Löf in cooperation with award-winning chef Fredrik Eriksson as a restaurant/ exhibition hall and was where Design Talks, the popular discussion forum, took place during which high-profile guests, including Jenny B. Osuldsen from Norwegian architecture firm, Snøhetta, and Shohei Shigematsu from OMA in New York discussed the “Scandinavia Now” theme.

Meanwhile, everyone was talking about the new Editor’s Choice award, whose jury consisted of three editors-in-chief: Dezeen’s Marcus Fairs; Stylepark’s Adeline Seidel and DAMn magazine’s Walter Bettens. They had the painstaking task of selecting the awards for Best Stand (awarding the “red cave” designer Pietro Ferruccio Laviani created for Foscarini) for Rising Star (awarding Studio BEY), and Best Product (the Alto table lamp by designer Dirk Winkel and Producer Wästberg).

One of the notable events orbiting Stockholmsmässan was the incredible exhibition that ArkDes architecture museum and Residence Magazine created in honor of Designer of the Year winner, Note Design Studio. Leading stylist, Lotta Agaton, interpreted Note’s work as stylized vignettes highlighting the important role styling plays in today’s social media conscious world.   

“Nature is back for Good” at the Trends Exhibition which aimed to answer the longing we have to get back to nature, or to at least incorporate it into our urban lifestyles, saw Swedish designer, Emma Olbers, Finnish interior stylist, Susanna Vento and Danish interior stylist, Christine Rudolph designing an outdoors area, a meeting room and the Teatime & Playtime room, respectively.

Sustainability is definitely a must for the rising design stars of tomorrow as demonstrated by Greenhouse, Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair’s hall which acted as a spring board for young or not-yet-established designers. Created by Form Us With Love design studio (who also designed the wonderful I-X FUWL exhibition as a retrospective of their decade long industrial design consultancy, business ventures and civic projects) it included the premiere of the traveling exhibition Ung Svensk Form (which is run by Svensk Form in cooperation with IKEA and Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair) as well as the “Naturalist” exhibition, a continuation of a venture by product designer Yaroslav Misonzhnikov and curator Tatiana Kudryavsteva. It featured the works of 15 emerging Russian designers who had been challenged to merge nature into urban lifestyles, such as the PLANTSCAPE modules by Maxim Scherbakov. 

“Green is said to be the color that the human eye can determine the most shades out of,” Irene and Christofer of Rebel Walls said and their luxuriant Leaf Love wall mural from their new PASSION series does much to establish that theory. Issey Miyake certainly embraced the shade in his home ware collection for Iittala, along with gray and blue, the other two colors that reoccurred. A walk through the stands revealed Studio Bla’s color paint series by Alcro, Nomess Coppenhagen’s Display Tray, Monica Forster for Rostrand’s Inblue porcelain tableware and the beautifully articulated work of naturalist designer, Emma Von Broomssen, also embracing the many tones of the sky.

Juxtapositions also stood out; such as the small, high-tech w152 Busby lamp (by Wästberg in collaboration with Industrial Facility) which has the ability to concurrently provide universal power from three USB outlets, while Mubbs’ natural river stone bathtub—hollowed out of a single, huge boulder was displayed only a few exhibitions away!

Other highlights included Swedese celebrating its 60th birthday while being voted “the 20th Century’s Best Swedish Furniture Design” for the Lamino chair by Yngve Ekström, which has been manufactured since 1956; the launch of new designs in Per Söderberg’s, No Early Birds collection; the innovative new home elevator which was designed by Alexander Lervik for Artico; and the lamps created by Michael Anastassiades for Flos, among many other wholly covetable creations.

There was certainly something for everyone represented at 2016 Stockholmsmässan! But don’t just take our word for it. See for yourselves…