Carl Malmsten

The architect Carl Malmsten was born in Stockholm in 1888. With a father who was a teacher and a mother whose family founded the Grand Hotel, he grew up in the bourgeois environment of the time. In 1909 Malmsten worked as a carpenter's apprentice and between 1911 and 1916 he worked in an architect's office while also studying on his own.

As early as 1916, he made his mark by winning both the first and second prizes in a competition for interiors for Stockholm's City Hall. He said these were the first interiors he designed. He designed the furniture in the City Hall himself. Malmsten was a strong believer in the Swedish classicism of the 1920s. Skansen Museum and the Nordic Museum were his most important sources of knowledge when it came to furthering his design career.

During the 1920s, Carl Malmsten received several prestigious commissions as a designer. Among other things, he was commissioned to decorate the large living room at Ulriksdal Palace, the Stockholm Concert Hall and the Matchstick Palace in Stockholm, which was given an updated interior with the designer’s paintings. In the 1930s, he went to New York to design the Waldorf Astoria hotel and to participate in the world exhibition. He opened his own shop on Strandvagen in Stockholm in 1940, which remained at the same address until it moved in 2021.

During his working life, Carl Malmsten created a series of design classics. The Lilla Åland chair is one of his most famous pieces, which today is loved by children large and small because of its neat and simple Scandinavian style. The inspiration for the Lilla Åland chair came from Finström Church on the island of Åland, where Malmsten attended a workshop in 1938. Inspired by the carpenter's hand-painted chair, he produced the seven-corner design, which was then adapted for production at Stolfabriks AB in Smålandsstenar, as Stolab was known at the time. The Lilla Åland chair was given its final form in 1942, and hasn’t changed since. The Vardags furniture range of tables and chairs is a reminder of Carl Malmsten's ideals and designs, which are just as relevant today.