Björn Alge worked as a buildings engineer and logger, when in 1978 he got accepted to study industrial design at Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm from where he graduated in 1982.
Alge's debut furniture was the chair Frame from 1982, in which his background as an engineer is clear to see in the steady, but light, wooden construction. One of Alge first commissions was to create furniture for a café. Together with the producer Lindelöfs Interiör he made a collection called Fest-Yra (in English party-fever) that was launched on the furniture fair in Stockholm 1986. The collection consisted of a table; Fest and a chair Yran. (The name of Yran Alge got from two chairs that inspired him the most: Hans J Wegner’s Y-chair (eng. Wishbone chair) and Arne Jacobssen’s Myran (eng. The ant)).
During the 80’s and 90’s Alge became one of Sweden’s most influential industrial designers. He was a partner in the firm of Landqvist & Sjöholm and later started his own business under the name Myra Industrial Design.
As chairman of the Swedish Industrial Designers between 1987-89, Alge worked for better work ethics in the design industry. In 1998 he played a part in the foundation of the Swedish Design Academy that worked towards: "to give attention, encouragement and support the evolution of industrial design in Sweden in the fields of education and research within the theoretical as well as the practical side of the profession.” His interest in education, also brought him to Konstfack, and the board of education at the institution for industrial design.
Commercially it’s for the many office chairs made together with Kinnarps, that Alge is best known. His chairs from the series 6-8 000 were produced by the thousands per day in the late 1990’s.
Björn Alge died in 1999, at the age of 56.
