New Finnish Design

As a part of this weeks Core 77 NY Design Week, STRAIGHTFORWARD: New Finnish Design is setting up shop at the Chelsea Market

“Is it not the ultimate meaning of the beautiful to
be essential, functional, justified, truthful?”
— Designer Kaj Franck (1911–1989)

Designer Kaj Franck is often described as the conscience of Finnish design. He thought that in order to be designated good and beautiful, an object had to be durable, robust, easy to clean, functional, do justice to the materials used for it, and be indispensable. By removing everything excessive from his designs and leaving only the essential, he created a design philosophy, which has become the backbone of Finnish design.

The starting point for STRAIGHTFORWARD stemmed from the validity of this principle today. The route was to discover the ways in which present day Finnish design still embraces those traditional values, and how these values have been reinterpreted today.