How a Danish duo evolved Swedish furniture design

How a Danish duo transformed a Swedish furniture giant

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The transformative collaboration between Swedish furniture giant, Lammhults, and Danish designers Johannes Foersom and Peter Hiort-Lorenzen, tracing its significant impact on the company's international success. It delves into their enduring partnership, marked by revolutionary designs like the Newport seating-series and Campus chair, that catapulted Lammhults into global prominence.

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In the late 1980s, the high profiled furniture company Lammhults started a collaboration with the Danish furniture designers Johannes Foersom (b.1947) and Peter Hiort-Lorenzen (b.1943). The company was in a major shift after separated from the leading Swedish designer-duo Börge Lindau and Bo Lindekrantz after working together for almost 25 years.

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Lammhults’ management realized the company needed to extend their business internationally, and accordingly needed a new more international oriented product portfolio.
With Foersom and Hiort-Lorenzen Lammhults received a vital injection, a partly new design language with a number of export-sales successes to come. The company became an international player in a completely different way than before. Lammhults is known for long-term relations with their freelance design-partners. In that way development should benefit both parties over time. Lammhults’ collaboration with the Danes continues to this day, over 30 years since the start.

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One of Foersom & Hiort-Lorenzen's first product range for Lammhults, was the seating-series Newport. It was launched in 1988 and received mixed reactions from the design press. Some critics said the design was not Scandinavian and did not match Lammhults’ established brand image, while others just saw an interesting transformation.

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Four years later, in 1992 Lammhults launched the chair Campus which turned out to be their best success ever. With Campus Foersom & Hiort-Lorenzen met the requirements of the new minimalistic interior-trend after the 1980s overloaded post modern movement. The chair was spread over the world and is still today one of Lammhults’ best sellers.

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The seating range Archal is another of the designer´s corner stones. The first version was designed in 2011 and has since been further developed into new versions.

Read more about Johannes Foersom and Peter Hiort-Lorenzen.

This article was written by Lars Bülow