In this issue, we begin to carry out the Nordic simple style Soft decoration design and decoration Learning Journey:
1、 Origin background
Nordic is called "Scandinavia" in English, which includes Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland. The word Scandinavian design appeared in the 1950s and became famous for its simplicity and practicality. In order to protect traditional handicrafts, Northern Europe was late affected by the European Industrial Revolution and did not keep pace with the vigorous modernist movement in Central Europe. However, it has its own unique pace of development and later became a banner leading the world's modern interior design. The popularity of Nordic simple style is closely related to a large number of outstanding furniture and lamp designers in the 20th century.
The long winter and short sunshine in Northern Europe inspired designers to create a bright, gentle and practical living space. They should not only use limited local materials to make the space as comfortable as possible, but also ensure that high-quality design is enduring. This green design concept not only affects surrounding countries, but also spreads all over the world. For hundreds of years, the idea that products are designed for functional needs has been deeply rooted in Northern Europe Overall household soft decoration The design idea has always been based on functionalism.
Affected by the relatively isolated geographical location, Nordic designers pay more attention to learning new ideas from all parties. All products are produced for individuals, which conforms to the view of the current democratic society, and has also become the motto of Nordic designers. Nordic designers have always adhered to the traditional belief of enjoying work and making life more colorful, and such designers are deeply respected by people.
The products produced by mass machines did not dominate the Nordic products, and the industrial scale of Nordic countries was much smaller. After the Second World War, Nordic countries have set up a series of relevant associations and schools to protect their traditional handicraft industry. Technologies from traditional processes are integrated into High end soft decoration Among them, the famous "industrial art" was finally created.
Life in the machine era becomes easier. On the premise of meeting functional needs, people's emotional needs for the spiritual level become more and more urgent, which makes Nordic functionalism pay more attention to nature and humanity. However, there are still some extreme functionalist designs that abandon all decoration for the sake of pure function.
As early as the 1930s, a group of Nordic designers and architects began to deviate from the main path of modernist geometric mechanized thinking. They turn their eyes to nature and look for organic natural forms in nature to meet their emotional and spiritual needs. The natural law of nature is that the natural forms of all things in the world come from their functions and provide materials for human creation. Nordic designers and architects no longer fantasize about how to change the world, on the contrary, they pay more attention to how to enhance their humanistic experience.
Known as Nordic Modern Joseph Frank, the father of interior design, proposed that taking white as the background color can provide maximum freedom for the color selection of other items, and the color of white walls and other items can achieve the best balance, which laid a theoretical foundation for Nordic interior design.. Frank opposes the affectation of detail design and advocates the free mix of personal interest and family atmosphere, emphasizes the unique relationship between family decoration and users, and believes that all furniture is an independent and living organism, and his warm humanistic thought is incompatible with dogmatic modernism.
In the early 20th century, other parts of the world were still unfamiliar with the simple style of Northern Europe. The first exhibition was held in Stockholm, Sweden in 1930, and the Danish art exhibition held in New York with the Danish royal family visiting the United States in 1960. From then on, the world began to know and accept "Scandinavian design". "Scandinavian design" means simple, beautiful and clean, derived from nature and northern climate conditions, suitable for all people in the world who want to enjoy the local environment and live in harmony with it.
3、 Interior elements
1. Wall
There is no unnecessary decoration on the overall soft decoration wall of the simple Nordic style home. Most of the cases are just simple white whitewash. For an important wall, you may choose wallpaper with elegant colors and repeated patterns, or paint neutral colors (such as medium gray); Sometimes, clay bricks with white seams will be paved on the wall to create a visual effect of texture contrast. Pine slats used in sauna bathrooms are also often used for interior wall decoration of families, bringing clean, warm and textured visual effects to families.
2. Ground
The floors in the simple style of Northern Europe are mostly paved with light colored or bleached solid wood floors. Modern carpets are often used to cover the whole room, but small carpets are often used in some important areas (such as the living room sofa area and the bedside of the bedroom). The small carpets are mostly striped or light colored.
3. Ceiling
The ceiling is usually painted white, regardless of whether it is gypsum ceiling or exposed parallel beams.
4. Doors and windows
Due to the special climate, natural light is an indispensable part of Nordic people, so maximizing the window area is the primary consideration in architectural design, and it is best not to block. In addition to the classic white door leaves and window frames, light wood color door leaves and window frames are also common in the simple style of northern Europe, forming a perfect whole with the same light wood color furniture and cabinets. The door surface is smooth without any decoration.
5. Stairs
The Nordic simple style does not deliberately emphasize the existence of stairs as the modern international style does. The Nordic simple style stairs are simple in shape, narrow in space, and practical. Many times the lower part of the stairs will be used as a storage room. In order to save limited space, ordinary families often use wooden or metal spiral stairs. Due to space constraints, the slope of the stairs is steep. The rest of the wooden stairs are usually painted white, except that the treads retain the wood color. The metal components of metal spiral stairs can be painted white or black.
In order to take up as little space as possible, columns are often omitted. There are few styles of stair railing, usually just cylindrical or square column thin rod components.
6. Cupboard hardware
The simple style of the kitchen cabinet in northern Europe is very simple and practical. It is basically composed of white plates, without any decorative lines on the surface. There is often a gap between the wall cabinet and the ceiling. The cabinet door is usually a solid door, and some wall cabinets are replaced by shelves. The floor cabinet is usually made of thick solid wood plywood or stainless steel plate for varnish treatment.
The simple style handles in Northern Europe are basically simple button shaped and mushroom shaped. Most handles are straight, T-shaped or scarf shaped, and their materials are mainly nickel plated metal, stainless steel and ceramics.
7. Fireplace
The long winter in northern Europe determines the importance of fireplaces in families; No matter in the past or now, family life in Northern Europe cannot live without fireplace. The traditional shape of the fireplace, the cylindrical ceramic fireplace in the corner, is often used. Its white glaze and beautiful shape are the symbols of the Nordic family. In addition, modern Nordic fireplace styles also include various geometric shapes of black cast iron fireplaces and white painted brick fireplaces.
8. Color pattern
The colors of the simple style of Northern Europe are mainly neutral colors, such as white, beige and light blue. Sometimes they appear light green, and are often decorated with striking red, magenta or emerald green. In order to create special visual effects, a moderate amount of black will occasionally appear on a certain wall or furniture cushion fabric.
Preserving and showing the natural color of wood is a typical texture feature of the simple style of Northern Europe. Nordic people often use gray oil to eliminate the natural yellow of pine or oak.
The simple style of Northern Europe itself has no symbolic decorative patterns, and its typical patterns are all artistic decorative flowers and colorful stripes, which usually exist for the source of decorative colors, mainly appearing on fabrics and printed products. The natural products of northern Europe often become the prototype of fabric or decorative painting patterns, such as; Pinies, deer, snowflakes, sledges, etc.
The simple geometric patterns appearing in the traditional hand woven fabrics of the Nordic indigenous Sami people have also become the common decorative patterns in the modern Nordic simple style. They are usually composed of bright red, yellow and blue colors. Popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Swedish folk figure of Dala wooden horse is also common in the simple style of fabrics and decorative paintings in northern Europe.
4、 Soft decoration elements
1. Furniture
Nordic simple style furniture is simple and elegant, using light brush color to retain natural wood grain; If paint is used, it is usually painted white or light yellow. They are seldom decorated with cushions, and the beds are low without any decoration. Most of them are produced and sold by furniture companies in batches by those world-famous furniture design masters.
Bruno Masson's Grasshopper Chair ▲
Jacobson's Ant Chair ▲
The most symbolic Nordic simple style furniture includes:
Molded plywood chair designed by Alva Alto;
Molded plywood chair ▲
Molded plywood chair ▲
common Nordic style Modern furniture includes bedding (mainly flat bed), office furniture (especially office chair), leather recliner, coffee table and Nordic teak furniture. Although the simple style furniture of northern Europe is famous for its simple geometric line features, if you mix a crystal chandelier produced in the 19th century or a luxurious Louis XVI dining chair in the space, it can better reflect the essence of mixed decoration.
2. Lighting
Lighting is one of the elements that cannot be ignored in the simple style of Northern Europe, and it is also the main supporting role in creating a simple space atmosphere. Lamps designed by Paul Henningson are often used as symbolic lamps in modern families in northern Europe,
In addition, embedded downlights and track spotlights are the most commonly used general lighting fixtures in the simple style of Northern Europe.
3. Window decoration
White or light colored curtain cloth needs to effectively shield glare and noise, and can make vision soft; For northern Europe in the long winter, the most important thing is to let as much light into the room as possible. Therefore, the fabrics used for curtain fabrics in the Nordic simple style mainly include:; White semi transparent thin silk, thin woven linen and textured tulle. The curtain eyebrows are usually of two styles, namely, eyelet type or suspender type.
4. Bed decoration and pillow
Nordic simple style bed decoration attaches great importance to the use of natural materials, such as leather, wool and cotton, but also modern man-made fibers, such as nylon, acrylic and polyester. Printed cotton includes; Suede, cotton silk, canvas, serge and cotton satin, and printed patterns include flower fields, waves, boats and trees, leaves, snowflakes, animals, birds and geometric figures.
The simple style pillows in northern Europe are often one of the main sources of color in a room, and their pure and bright colors usually play the role of finishing touch. The common patterns of pillows include geometric shapes, flowers, leaves, birds, people, stripes and water ripples, which are simple, natural and full of childlike charm. Most of them are square or rectangular and have no borders.
5. Carpet
The small rugs in the simple style of Northern Europe reflect the folk crafts of modern color and design in Northern Europe, including; Originated from the Greek hand woven wool thick pile carpet, Greek goat hair carpet, coarse wool carpet and Rolinkan tapestry carpet used by Alexander the Great when he swept East Asia.
So far, our study tour of soft clothing - Nordic simple style is over, and we will continue to study other soft clothing styles in the next issue.