CARL MALMSTEN. “Samsas”, sofa, designed 1960.

Badge marked. Recently re-dressed. Height 86 cm. Seat height 39 cm. Length 180 cm.

Samsas from 1960 is a simplified version of the Konsert armchair that was designed for the Konserthuset in Stockholm in 1923 (in production from 1934 to the early 70s).

In the past, people talked about Carl Malmsten as a designer who used virtually all existing furniture styles throughout history, and from that came his own unmistakable Carl Malmsten style: the friendly enveloping, rounded shapes, the good craftsmanship, the respect for the material.

Today, with the new interest in Swedish Grace (sometimes referred to as Swedish Art Deco) and Swedish Modern, Carl Malmsten is increasingly mentioned as a unifying link, the connection between these two styles.

Many of his lavish interiors from the 1920s can be said to define Swedish Grace (for example, the Crown Prince couple's living room at Ulriksdal Castle). Similarly, the furniture models he exhibited at the 1939 New York World's Fair give a good picture of Swedish Modern, as a distinctive Swedish combination of modernism and tradition.

Carl Malmsten had his real breakthrough after the exhibition Living Tradition at the Röhsska Museum in Gothenburg in 1956. It was then that they were shown for the first time, many of the armchairs and sofas we today so clearly associate with Carl Malmsten: Grandma, Hemmak, Little Sister, Husmor, Interplay... Carl Malmsten now moved away from precious luxury production of single furniture to a more industrial production, where the quality of craftsmanship and materials was nevertheless observed. The result was that his furniture was spread to a much larger audience and that he himself received the epithet “folk home designer”.

Carl Malmsten was versatile and prolific, he is said to have left behind more than 20,000 sketches and drawings and his almost endless rows of furniture models are barely visible.
In the end, just one armchair will suffice. The only question is which one? Grandma? The Alderman? Our wife? August? Home night? Lazy Count? Yeah, it might not matter. Whatever you choose, you sit comfortably, you sit safely, and you sit for a long time in a Carl Malmsten armchair.