Way back when in the burgeoning atomic age/cold war era, iconic Swedish designer Carl Malmsten produced the Berlin Sofa. Designed in mind of the sedate and somber preferences of the Swedish consulate, Malmsten’s sofa reflected his body of work–simple, straightforward wooden craftsmanship; highly symmetrical; somewhat conservative in both concept and execution. Indeed, Malmsten, who died in 1972, leaving behind some 10,000 drawings and hundreds of actual pieces, “devoted his life to the renewal of traditional Swedish craftsmanship, inspired by the cultural examples of the Swedish country manor and rustic styles.” With this in mind, the millennial interpretations executed by Acne Studio‘s Jonny Johannsen might seem at odds with Malmsten’s legacy. Indeed, Johannsens’ Nya Berlin Collection–three “sofa-esque” concoctions and one piece that mostly resembles a chair-- might be read as an inverse/ironic take on the original Berlin.

Nya Berlin Collection. Designed by Jonny Johannsen for Acne Studio.

But then, this whole design event is rife with irony, beginning with the unfortunately named “Acne”–the branding/advertising/fashion house under Johannsen’s stewardship; extending into Acne’s origins–the firm is renowned for (of all things) its ready-to-wear unisex denim, whose signature touch is its overtly-integrated red thread; and finally on to 2010’s “New Berlin”–four pieces that appear to have been stretched along the Y-Axis of some unseen computer graphics program. The pieces put the “Q” in “Quirky,” since they look rather like furnishings ready made for a race of Tim Burton’s or Dr. Seuss’ elongated and distorted cartoon hominids come to life, rather than for buttoned-down 1950’s Swedes. Johannsen takes this disconnect (and the pieces’ dubious functionality) happily in stride: “With this sofa as a reference, I started to look at how we worked architecturally, instead of just treating, say, the upholstery. I decided as an alternative to objectify its form from a perspective play.”

This blurb is just the ticket to light the proverbial mental bulb of flummoxed onlookers. As with many “experimental” pieces, Johannsen’s Berlin is an admirable attempt to re-contextualize (and thus redefine) a vaunted heritage. Seen from this perspective, Nya Berlin is an impressive achievement–Johannsen succeeds in what literary types like to call “parodic homage”–which, if you ask me, is the best kind of tribute, since it memorializes Malmsted while also making his work intelligible to our millennial demographic. And Johannsen also achieves the nifty trick of re-contextualizing his own past success: "Why did we chose to dress it in indigo? Denim is our heritage and I thought it was super interesting to treat the upholstery in the same way we approach our jeans–by washing, bleaching, and hand-dying the pieces to create very bespoke finishes.”

Via Selectism.