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Archives Copyright: Picture copyright © 1985-2003 SLLTD Oy. All rights reserved. EXAMPLE
A PRODUCT Scaragoo. 1988. Adjustable (table) lamp with "touch on" halogen light source. Anadized aluminum, steel, plastics. Height approx.: 80 cm./31". "Scaragoo" was Lindfors' first international project to go into production and it was introduced to the market at the Euroluce dept. of Salone del Mobile , Milan, September 1988, at the stand of Ingo Maurer. At the time it was the only product of an outside designer in the product catalogues of Ingo Maurer's collection. The low-voltage halogen technology had made it possible for the desingers to "play" with their lamp designs, but Lindfors didn't think that many of the products on the market at the end of the 80's where that interesting. Lindfors' approach was, that "if you're gonna play, play all the way! -Either you make a toy or you don't." Scaragoo was published in The International Design Yearbook 1989 on two pages. It is part of the permanent collection of several museums around the world and it has been in production since 1988. Photo: Kari Holopainen. Images: neste. 1996. Containers for motor oil and different chemical fluids for the auto business; 4 & 1 lit. bottles for the different motor oils and 3 & 1 lit. bottles for the chemical fluids. Bottles are produced in plastics using the "blow-mold" technique; oils in metallic flake dark blue and chemicals in transluscent plastics letting the fluids function as color codes. In 1993 Neste Oy, Finland, commissioned Lindfors to design new containers for the retail market of motor oils and chemical fluids. The first prototypes were completed in Spring 1995, and a problem within Neste's filling process made the use of the design impossible. These prototypes were included in the "Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design" exhibition by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, opening at MoMA in May 1995. A new project between Lindfors and Neste began in Spring 1995, and the final new design for the same purpose was introduced to the Nordic and the Baltic market in Winter 1997, and distriubution with the new containers began. Lindfors philosophy from the first project remained; "Find paralells in the design from whatever else then the Formula 1 business. -A car in the late 20th century is a family thing, not a rocket." Lindfors' design for Neste was at the time the smallest 4-liter container for motoiroil in outside dimensions, thus improving Nestes international retail-export business. It was well-critiqued for its "pouring qualities", improving Neste retail sales. (Neste , that apart from being a main distributor of oils, also specializes in several technologies such as solar and chemical). Photo: Marco Melander.
"EgO" is produced in the traditional Arabia fashion, vitreuos china, and the first above mentioned items come in a glazed off-white. Functional characters are primarly stackability, stability, same plate for cup as for "cake". Cups fit on plates also up-side-down, and plates also fit on top of cups as "covers". "EgO" is a growing collection for Arabia, and Stefan Lindfors' first project for the company. The long-term collaboration began in May 1996, and the collection of cups and saucers are the first items of EgO. Despite their unconventional form, they can be manufactured in the traditional production line, letting the collection stay within the price-range of the main target market of Arabia. They were introduced to the market in Frankfurt in February 1998. Photo: Marco Melander.
The EgO plates are an addition to the EgO collection of massproduced vitreous china tableware by Lindfors for Arabia. The philosophy is simple: Less items, larger in size. The plates come in two sizes, slightly smaller for the residential market, large for the commercial market, primarly restaurants. They are available in the Arabia off-white aswell as with an edge-decoration in darkgrey, which pattern derives from Lindfors' Alaris collection of fabrics for Marimekko¨ in 1988. The EgO plates were introduced to the market at the Ambiente fair in Frankfurt in 2000. Photo: Marco Melander. Images: EgO. 2000. The EgO containers are an addition to Lindfors' EgO collection of tableware for Arabia. They are the first items by Arabia where a high-injected plastic plays an essential role in the design; the precise but flexible plastic cap sits tight on the ceramic container despite tolerances typical for ceramic production. The container comes in two sizes, off-white in colour, and the cap fits both container sizes, available in red, white, black and darkgrey. The EgO containers were introduced at the Ambiente fair in Frankfurt in February 2000. Photo: Marco Melander.
Bowl is coldpressed in stainless steel, and then polished. The two tools are coldpressed stainless with hollow handles of stainless. The tools are polished. The diameter of the bowl is 36 cm. /14,5". Lindfors 98 is Stefan Lindfors' first design for Hackman, and it is part of a larger collection under the general theme name Hackman tools™. Other designers participating with objects under this new collection are-among others-Antonio Citterio, Ross Lovegrove and Renzo Piano. The entire first collection of Hackman tools™ was introduced to the market at Ambiente in Frankfurt in February 1998. Photo: Marco Melander.
The BOY drinking glasses are the first project by Lindfors for Iittala, following his philosophy for high-end design in the everyday category: The glasses are pressed, which is the most cost-efficient manufacturing process at Iittala, leaving the end consumer-price at a reasonable level. The innovation in the design is a round upper edge, but an ellipse-form by the bottom of the stem of the glass. BOY comes in three different shapes, sizes and colours. The collection was introduced at the Ambiente fair in Frankfurt in Spring 2000. Photo:
Abaqus is an all-round chair in laminated veneer (seat) and high-injected plastics for legsupport, armrests, serial connection function etc. The legs are in steel or optional wood. seat upholstery optional aswell as armrest and serial connection. The aim behind the project was to achieve a seat with qualities for global distribution, for an exceptionally large market in regard to that of the Finnish furniture industry. Abaqus has fairly generic looks considering the quite innovative solutions regarding materials and productional methods. The chair stacks straight up vertically, weighs approx. 3,8 kg, and has passed the American BIFMA durability tests. The manufacturing price is, due to research and tooling investments, highly competitive. Seat and backrest stained in basically any colour desired, plastic parts have four options as standard. Abaqus was introduced ready for distribution at the Housemix show in Milan in April 2000 during the time of the furniture fair. Photo: Marco Melander. Images:
Lindfors 1 is a stackable all-round chair that comes with or without armrests, upholstery is optional (either on both seat and backrest or only on seat), and the chair connects in rows. The one-legged chair has a press-laminated (wood) seat, leg of welded steel and armrest in a high-injected plastic. The chair also comes with a pneumatic office leg on six casters. The prototype of Lindfors 1 was published in a profile article on Stefan Lindfors in Domus magazine, june 1994, and the protoypes have since then been shown at different occasions and fairs. It is the first product in a long-term agreement collaboration with P.O. Korhonen, part of The Martela Group, Helsinki, Finland. First commercial client; restaurant Piégon, Helsinki, 1997. Photo: Marco Melander.
The Booa collection was designed primarly for the public sector of the market, emphazising on a design that would have an interesting aestehetic appeal from whichever angle viewed. Obviously durability was a criteria aswell. The seat is formpressed laminate or aluminum sheet. Photo: Marco Melander.
A range of silver casted jewelry for both men and women; ear rings, tie pins etc. The name "Messages" due to symbols with different meanings embossed in the otherwise smooth surface of the designs. These designs were optional, and taken off the production in the beginning of the 90's, and the designs in the collection since then only come with the smooth surface. Photo: Juha-Pekka Laakio.
A series of bags in sown, extremely durable and washable fabrics. In addition to the plain black, there are two options available with the pattern "Anakonda", either in red/white or black/white. Both the bags and the fabrics named "Anakonda" were launched at the "Stefan Lindfors' HOUSEMIX" show in Milan in April 2000 during the time of the furniture fair. The Anakonda bags were designed to satisfy the needs of the urban traveller, unisex and simple in design; hiding quite a few innovative solutions under the cover. Photo: Marco Melander.
A pattern in two sizes (small and large) where the structure derives from Lindfors handwritten text ankaonda, which then was manipulated so that the written word "anakonda" almost dissapears completely, changing into an abstract pattern. Photo: Marco Melander. Images:
One (1) pattern reminding of a structure of a sea chart of an archipelago. Alandia is latin for The Aaland Islands, an archipelago between Finland and Sweden. Lindfors was born in The Aaland Islands. Alandia was designed with high interior spaces and large surfaces in mind. Exceptional for the fabric is, that the "report" -the repeated pattern- is 3 meters. In the printed fabric industry this is quite unusual; 0.6 to 1.2 meters is normal. Photo: Marco Melander. Images:
The fabrics come in various colors, sizes small, medium, large, and x-large. The collection of fabrics aswell as a collection of clothes (carrying the patterns in question) were introduced to the international market in Düsseldorf in February 1998. Photo: Joanna Moorhouse.
The collection of a raincoat, a suit, shirts, sweaters, t-shirts, ties etc. was Lindfors' first collection of fashion for Marimekko. All items carry the Alaris pattern in various sizes. The Alaris collection (along with the fabrics) was introduced to the international market in Düsseldorf in February 1998. Photo: Joanna Moorhouse.
The invention on which the Kotini company based, is a module with which one can assemble a house or a building of almost any size without having to do any carpentry / "traditional house assembly" on-site. The module, or unit, will attach quite like as if one assembled a full-size "lego" house, complete with electrical, insulation, etc. The aim being a no-hazzle-super-fast post pre-fab. Lindfors' "Qubico" was a statement for how the architecture should transform. Having analyzed the philosophy of the company Kotini, Lindfors let the soul of the component set the perimeters for the architecture, the space solutions recognizes current and future urban space-demands (garden-on-the-roof, for example), and the design responds to a product-directed philosophy. "Qubico" is merely one (1) example for how to put the Kotini invention to work. In Fall of 2000 Kotini is looking for an international manufacturer to overtake production. Lindfors is stand-by with several new architectural designs for various residential needs. The first prototype, the "Qubico", is a 2-story cube with living surface of 80 square meters, roof on top, sauna etc., and was erected in Summer 1999 in Lappeenranta, Finland. Drawning: Stefan Lindfors, 043
A stackable fourlegged allround chair with optional armrest, that also came with a pneumatic office-leg. The backrest was designed to most efficiently support office work positions, and the thin shape was not only an aesthetic solution, but also an architectural one: In an office landscape even a large number of "Flamingos" would feel "lighter" in the space than most seats due to the minimal backrest design. Flamingo was designed for and was part of a larger collection by several designers called "Signatures" which Martela produced and distributed until 1993. Photo: Kari Holopainen. Images: B GRAPHIC DESIGN
Alessi commissioned 100 designers around the world to decorate a porclain vase designed by Alessandro Mendini. Of each design 100 pcs. were then produced and distributed. Lindfors wanted to give the vase age due to the "timeless" design of the object itself; therefore the joke on copying the glazed surface of an ancient ceramic vase. Lindfors also thought the "aerodynamic" design of Menidini's vase could use some rigidity in the graphic structure as a counter-balance. Photo: Marco Melander.
The Aaland Islands belong to Finland, but they have their own stamps. Lindfors was commisioned to design a new stamp celebrating to new millenium. The Aaland Islands are, since the Geneva Conference, a demilitarizied zone, and have because of this been called "The Islands of Peace". Lindfors used the traditional peace-mark as a frame for the design. Since the peace-mark is round, so is the stamp. There is, in addition, a square-shaped perforation surrounding the round perforation to make it easier to tear stamp off the sheet if so desired. The circle-shaped stamp comes in four different colours, and is available from post offices since January 3, 2000.
New York writer Bret Easton Ellis' book Glamorama was translated into Finnish by Finnish publishing company Tammi, and published in Fall of 1999. Lindfors designed the cover of the Finnish translation of this novel by author Ellis (American Psycho 1990 etc.). Images:
Concept and graphic design for Ismo Alanko's CD "Irti". Photos Laura Ditko and Marco Melander, photoshop etc.: Adam Wells.
This was Lindfors' first graphic design to go to print (aswell as the invitation for the same exhibition Metaxis). During his fourth year as a student at the University of Industrial Arts (now UIAH), Lindfors was among many other young designers invited to participate in an exhibition arranged and hosted by the Museum of Applied Arts, Helsinki. In addition to submitting his work (thrones for the worldleaders), he designed the invitation and the poster for this national exhibition of young finnish designers, and later also the cover of the January 1988 issue of the Finnish design magazine Muoto that featured Metaxis as a cover story. The exhibition poster "Metaxis" had a subtitle "Young Hands", and Lindfors wanted to express the state in which he felt the identity of young finnish design was at the time being: Confusion and a need to break loose from the inheritage from the 50's: A "messy situation", as if a child would have left the table without cleaning up after himself/herself; a child playing anatomy with a crab; an accident on a freeway.. Concept and graphic design by S.Lindfors. Photos by Kari Holopainen and Pasi Haaranen. Images:
During his fourth year as a student at the University of Industrial Arts (now UIAH), Lindfors was among many other young designers invited to participate in an exhibition arranged and hosted by the Museum of Applied Arts, Helsinki. In addition to submitting his work (thrones for the worldleaders), he designed the invitation and the poster for this national exhibition of young finnish designers, and later also the cover of the January 1988 issue of the Finnish design magazine Muoto that featured Metaxis as a cover story. Concept, graphic design and portrait by S.Lindfors. The portrait is of Mr. Kaj Kalin, father of the exhibition Metaxis and employee of the museum at the time. The graphic pictures are 4 meter high paintings that Lindfors had done to accompany his sculptural 3 thrones in the exhibition. Images:
Touring poster for Ismo Alanko's band "Ismo Alanko ja Tuonelan Lukio" in Fall 1993, performing music from the CD "Jäätyneitä Lauluja" (launched in Spring 1993). Concept, graphic design and photo by S.Lindfors. Images:
In honour of Finland's 75th anniversary in 1992, Design Forum Finland arranged an invitational exhibiton for approx. 20 Finnish designers and artists working in the field of applied arts. Lindfors was a member of the exhibition committee, participating as one of the 20 invited, exhibition architect, and the designer of the exhibiton catalogue and poster. Lindfors "copied" the Finnish weapon due to the 75th anniversary of the country, but he interprutated the original image by shaping it in clay and colourfully painting it to give it a feel for the subject of the exhibition in question. After the opening of the exhibition "Maamme" and the Helsinki-wide distribution of the poster, Lindfors was threatened by a law-suit called by an organisation protecting the use of symbols, flags, weapons etc. of the state of Finland. The association in question felt that Lindfors had insulted the country by interprutating the original image. Images:
Lindfors created the concept for the printed material for his growing collection "EgO"; tableware designed for Arabia, Finland. Rather than describing the qualities, innovations and functions for the different objects by writing, Lindfors created pictures that would do the same job, pictures don't have to be translated into several different languages, an obvious need for a company with global export. Lindfors designed the broschure aswell as the lay-out, he created the concept for the contents in the pictures, arranged the components (ie: animals, objects etc.) together with photographer Marco Melander, and directed the photoshoots. Photo: Marco Melander. Layout of pictures: Together with marketing office PHS, Helsinki. "EgO" logo design: Marketing office Hasan & Partners, Helsinki. Jäätyneitä Lauluja. 1993. Lindfors created the concept for, and designed the CD-, LP- and cassette covers for Ismo Alanko's music "Jäätyneitä Lauluja" ("Frozen Songs"), and took the photo of Alanko needed in the design. Images: 2XMariehamn. 1998. The city of Mariehamn, located in the archipelago between Finland and Sweden is Lindfors' hometown. When the Mayor of the city asked whether Lindfors wanted to do a book on Mariehamn for mainly touristical purposes, Lindfors replied that "not if it has to be the traditional postcard package". "2XMariehamn" stands for 2 days in Mariehamn, since Lindfors' idea was to structure the book into two sections; two days. Mariehamn and the surrounding archipelago (The Aaland Islands), swallow nearly half of Finland's tourists during the three summer months. Day 1: A day in the summer when the community is overcrowded by tourists. Day 2: A day in the winter when the community is quiet and very private. Together with Marco Melander Lindfors spent 24 hrs. of one of the summerdays capturing events and happenings that Lindfors had thought out in advance, and another day in winter, photographing some 40 inhabitants in their private or working environment. Lindfors then -togehter with the printer and Melander- manipulated Melander's photgraphs and they were printed in a unique combination of silver and other colors. Lay-out and graphic design aswell as prologue, epilogue & other stories by S.Lindfors. All texts in Swedish, Finnish, English and German. Production: Stefan Lindfors Ltd. Images:
In January 1991 Lindfors had his first one-man exhibition of sculpture in Helsinki, held at Amos Anderson Art Museum. Lindfors designed the catalogue for this exhibition, gathering around him one writer; Kaj Kalin, one photographer; Kari Holopainen, and one editor; Nenne Hallman. Lay-out and graphic design: S. Lindfors. Kalin's texts in Finnish, Swedish, English and Japanese. Production Stefan Lindfors Ltd. C PROTOTYPES Wamba. 1992. Wamba was Lindfors' proposal for a water kettle commissioned by Alessi, Italy. The first idea included legs in up- or down-position, so that the hot container could be placed on the table without burns. The kettle would both fill and pour through the nozzle which was cut in half to make filling easier. The complete upper section of the kettle, including the handle and cap, could be removed with a tight grip, and thus exposing a hole big enough to allow for cleaning the interior of the steel container. A second protoype was made in which the "triangle" shape became round, and the legs where left out. Alessi decided to stop enlargening their water kettle collection at the time being, a nd production of Wamba never began. The first of the two prototypes has been published in various magazines, among others in Domus (Milan), June 1994. Photo: Marco Melander. Langostinux. 1992. Adjustable table lamp, height 80 cm., anadized aluminum, stainless steel and plastics. 12 V halogen. After designing the lamp Scaragoo , which was taken into production by Ingo Maurer GmbH in Münich 1988, Lindfors made two other poroposals following the same philosophy as with Scaragoo: Kantanga and Langostinux. He wanted Scaragoo, with its yellow-anadized shield (lamp shade), to get two cousins; the blue Kantanga and the red Langostinux. The low-voltage halogen technology had made it possible for the desingers to "play" with their lamp designs, but Lindfors didn't think that many of the products on the market at the end of the 80's where that interesting. Lindfors approach was -as it had been with Scaragoo- that "if you're gonna play, play all the way! -Either you make a toy or you don't." Neither Kantaga nor Langostinux were taken into production by Ingo Maurer, and the prototypes are now in private collections. Langostinux has been published in, among other press, Blueprint (London), and the London Times. Photo: Marco Melander. The XY chair is the first project in Lindfors' professional career. In Spring 1985 at the age of 23, and with two years behind him as a student at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, Lindfors was doing the scenography for a play in West Berlin. During a brake in the 6 month long German production, Lindfors came back to Helsinki to build a protoype for a chair he had thought about for some time, using the facilities of his previous university for realizing the idea. The innovative solutions in the design quite clearly derived from Lindfors' native surroundings; archipelago and sailingboats. The idea was to make a durable, most comfortable and yet completely foldable chair. The six-legged construction is tightened together with cables and cablescrews. Lindfors custom-designed a spring with which the 8 ounce polyester fabric that formed the seat and the backrest could be tightened so thight, that the feel of the seat is equal to one in laminate. The polyester fabric is the one used for sails at heavy storm. By untightening the springs the seat forlds up in a roll. The vertical legs are anadized aluminum, and the horisontal supports are fiberglass rod, making the construction very durable due to its flexibility. As upholstery for the polyester fabric a printed cotton fabric is attached with velcro. Lindfors' made two prototypes, one with red legs and one with yellow legs. The Finnish design magazine "Muoto" published a four-page article on "project XY" in Fall 1985, which appearently slightly provoked the readers. It was Lindfors' first appearance in the professional media, and a "story-board" for the pictures included a naked Lindfors tightened up in cables, the yellow version of the chair was thrown off the roof of a 7-story building as a "durability test" (lasted 2 throws before being at all damaged), etc. etc.. The lay-out for the article was by finnish artist Pekka Niskanen. XY was chosen to the juried finnish design exhibition "Suomi Muotoilee 5" ("Finland Designs #5") in Summer 1985, and the "red version" of the chair is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Applied Arts, Helsinki. Photo: Marco Melander, 081 Togehter with fashion designer Ms. Marjatta Nissinen. Commissioned by: Finnish design office "Linja", Helsinki, Finland. Design office Linja commissioned Lindfors and fashion designer Ms. Marjatta Nissinen to create a concept and design for a collection of bags. The client was an Italian manufacturer. The concept was based on an idea in which different urethane plastics were used, and the unisex design was directed to the contemporary urban citizen. The "construction" had a hard urethane-frame, and the main surfaces were injected of another kind of urethane which would either protect from heat or from cold, aswell as having schock-resisting qualities. The Italian client did not commit to the conept. One prototype was made of one of the different bags in the proposed collection. This protodesign "Bagg" was published in Finnish design magzine Muoto in Fall 1997. Photo: Kari Holopainen. Parfyymi. 1993. Marimekko were considering distribution of their own perfume(s), and Lindfors was asked to design the container. Lindfors' philosophy was, that a perfume, and the world around it, is so "delicate" that handling even the bottle should happen with certain grace. The design of the bottle did not stand up, but one would have to carefully pick it up from it's lying position, and Lindfors' aim was in other words to manipulate the physical approach: Handle delicately, handle with care.. The "bumps" on the surface of the frosted glass bottle were not only an aesthetical decision, but they would hinder the object to roll off a shelf, for example. Marimekko did not go forward with the perfume project. The prototype was published in Domus (Milan) in June 1994. Photo: Marco Melander. Images: Oil. 1994. Finnish company Neste commissioned Lindfors to design new containers for the retail market of Neste's motoroils and other auto-related chemicals. The hole in the middle of the bottles (1 & 4 liters), obviously had a strong impact on the image of the design as intended, but more important was the functional quality that the hole resulted in: the contents -especially thick oil- would pore much better than from other containers on the market. The filling system of Neste could not fill the design with the fluids. Therefore the project failed, and Neste "re-commissioned" Lindfors later in 1994 to design a second proposal which he did. It was released on the market in winter 1996. (see "product Neste "). The prototypes of the first design "Oil", were part of MoMA's exhibition "Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design" opening at MoMA in New York May 1995, and they were published in Domus (Milan) in the June 1994 issue. Photo: Marco Melander. Images: D INTERIORS Marimekko Esplanade 92. 1992.
Lindfors' approach was to use finnish wood as the tradition only would expect, but rather then going with lackered birch or white painted surfaces typical in Finland since the 50's, Lindfors coloured all the surfaces with deep blue, -green, gold and -more than anything- red staine, leaving the graines of the wood present, but with an extremely "colourful" interior as a result. The public restrooms were covered with a pattern from floor to ceiling, burnt on tile exclusively for the store. The 64-tile pattern would be repeated over all surfaces in the restrooms, reminding of "the report"; repeating the pattern in the printed-fabric industry. (It was the printed-fabric designs that marimekko ones became worldfamous for). Rather then creating small individual dressing booths, Lindfors designed a large-scale "octopussy"-shaped dressing booth with a big common space, with a 5-meter wide mirror in order to make trying on clothes more comfortable for the female clientel. In addition to the general space (which obviously was the inside the "octopussy", closed off from the rest of the store), there were small booths integrated for personal complete privacy. The dressing-booth unit served as a strong and recognisable architectural element. After opening this store on the South Esplanade downtown Helsinki, Lindfors designed a second store with the same concept that opened in Münich in 1993. Photo: Marco Melander & Kimmo Virtanen. Images: Restaurant Piégon. 1997. Entire interior design for the restaurant including furniture and lighting. Furniture by P.O.Korhonen Oy, Raisio, Finland (chair Lindfors 01 ), fabrics from Lindfors' collection Alaris in production by Marimekko beginning February 1998, custom designed lamps in vacuum formed acrylic, etc.. Floor, walls and ceiling are covered with colored fabrics, painted and laquered. Bar counter of casted marine aluminum plates, hood over stairway to rest rooms has a welded steel structure and is covered with clear resined fiberglass. Piégon is Stefan Lindfors' first complete restaurant design in Finland, and additional designs and items were added throughout the year of 1998; the design process was deliberately on-going. The restaurant seated approx. 10 in the bar area and approx. 70 in the eating area. Restaurant Piégon had a South French country-style menu. Lindfors said about the graphic pattern covering floor, walls and ceilings, that in order for the interior not to loose ints identity amongst crowds of customers, foods and drinks on the tables etc., the design had to be strong enough to survive. The notion that a "strong" graphic solution would overtake the atmosphere in an uncomfortable manner was thus in Lindfors' opinion a complete mis-conception. The interior has been published in various magazines, among others in Domus (Milan), in December 1998. The owners of the restaurant sold the business in late 1998, and the place is, since Fall 1998 (after certain changes guided by Lindfors' office but with the same interior design), a crowded tapas-and-drinks late-night hang-out called "Mother". Photo: Marco Melander. Images: Seawolf Studios. 2000. Lindfors was asked to participate in creating the interiors for the new "Seawolf Soundstudios" on Suomenlinna , an Island connected to downtown Helsinki by a 15 minute "public transport ferry"-ride. The old historically protected building with one meter thick sand walls and arched ceilings, was perfectly suitble to house a recording studio. Since the company had determined to hire an internationally known professional sound-studio engineer, Ingemar Ohlsson, Stockholm, and since the beauty and amosphere of the old recently restored building attracted Lindfors, he agreed to participate. However, only on the condition that the original floors, walls and ceiling would remain untouched, in restored condition. Ingemar Ohlsson's solution was to build the recording booths as independent closed-in spaces, also free-floating in the rooms. These non-square "rooms-in-the-rooms", were already quite a strong interior solution, and Lindfors' mission remained treating the surfaces of these independent booths (both inside and outside), leaving the surfaces of the original spaces of the building untouched. Lindfors designed a pattern to be printed on a fabric, and with these fabrics in some ten (10) different colour combinations all surfaces were covered. The pattern was also taken into production by Marimekko, Finland, under the name "Alandia". Alandia is Latin for "Aaland, an archipelago in the southwest of finland. Lindfors argued that as a contrast to the very subtle colours and treating of the restored and historically protected interior walls of the building, the colourful "Islands" were a must in order to keep the wholisitic circumstance contemporary. Photo: Marco Melander. Images: E COMMISSIONED DESIGN Moth. 1988. Moth was Lindfors' first studio design for the TV News division of the Finnish Broadcasting Company "YLE". The brief was to design a news-reader's desk for the new "Late-Night News", that would allow one or two interviewed guests to sit in every night. At the time being sound distortion was a problem (nervous guest tapping their fingers on the table surface etc.). Lindfors main philosophical approach was to undiguise the news-reader; to make him or her a person as opposed to remaining as the so far "anonomous deliverer of the facts." The result of the design was a table without a top, so that the microphones would stand up through the tableframe from the floor, and thus never touching the tablesurface, making noise distortion practically impossible. One could then fill in the "holes" in the table in various colours and combinations, allowing for different angles and designs night after night. Most important from a political standpoint was, that the news-reader now was seen from top til toe through the camera, telling the news off something that perhaps reminded of a technical night-fly, a moth. Photo: Kari Holopainen. Images: The Kemper Chair. 1995. The stackable armchair has a seat of fiberglass and legs of cast aluminum. It was designed for mass-production. In 1994 the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Kansas City, Missouri, USA, commissioned Lindfors to design a chiar for the cafŽ and exhibition- and lecture spaces of the museum. The Museum opened in 1994, and approx. 100 chairs were delivered. The Kemper Chair was included in the "Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design" exhibition by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, opening at MoMA in May 1995, it has been awarded the "Good Design" award by The Chicago Athenaeum and it was the object on the cover of the European The International Design Yearbook 1996. Photo: E.G. Schempf, 116
Belux commissioned ten designers (Ron Arad, Hannes Wettstein, Paolo Pallucco etc.) to design a lamp for a gallery show in Cologne during the furniture fair winter 1992. The outer shield of the "Lamelli" was anadized aluminum, the inner "lamells" in various coloured vacuum-formed plastics, light source: cold energy-saving PL. When the Shield was in upward/"closed" position, the light would lead down along the wall, when one opened the shield, the lamells would be exposed, and the light would go up towards the ceiling. Photo: Marco Melander. Hommage a Pantone. 1990. Rolf Fehlbaum of Vitra commissioned ten designers (Mendini, Arad, Starck etc.) to make their own interprutation of Verner Pantone's "Pantone Chair" by using a produced "Pantone" as the starting point. Lindfors attached wheels to Mr. Pantone; welded and chromated steel-rod structure; standard factory rubber wheels. Photo: Horst Neumann. Star Trek I, Star Trek II & Star Trek III. 1998. The childrens' feeding seats were commissioned by the new museum of contemporary art of Helsinki, Kiasma, designed by New York architect Steven Holl, opening in May 1998 in the heart of the City. Chairs are for use at the Kiasma restaurant and bar, as well as in the street floor entrance lounge in general. The three seats are thought of as sculptures to pay hommage to the new museum as well as architect Steven Holl. The structure is welded stainless steel, covered with fibeglass and clear casted resins. The three one-of-a-kind seats are tinted in a slightly different colour; the ergonomics are standardized for children age 0,5 - 4. Photo: P.K. Lagus, 124 F ONE-OF-A-KINDS Butterfly 100. 2000. This chair Lindfors built exclusively for the invitational exhibition "100", part of the Helsinki Cultural City 2000 and curated by designer Timo Salli. The idea derived from a series of one-of-a-kinds that Lindfors built for The Gershwin Hotel (New York), aswell as for a show at Material Connexion (New York) Summer 2000. These above mentioned chairs had a translucent fiberglass coating, and the "Butterfly 100" does not. The Butterfly 100 is welded from 4mm. diameter steelrod, and then chromated. It is flexible in seat and armrest, due to contstructional solutions. Weight: 4 kg. Photo: Marco Melander. Images: mcx 0500. 2000. These welded steel chairs with generous measurements, armrests and wing-like backrests were built for the premises of the Gershwin Hotel. Three of the approx. 10 pieces, were exhibited in Lindfors' show "Wanted Wanders and Lindfors" together with Marcel Wanders at the Material Connexion gallery, Columbus Circle, New York, summer 2000. The chairs are welded from thin stainless steel rod, and covered with translucent fiberglass. Photo: Material Connexion. Images:
The University of Industrial Arts Helsinki was one of five European Universities participating in the Italian competetion for design students "Italia's Cup". The topic in the1986 competition was to design the future money. Lindfors worked togther with fellow student Martin Relander, and they came to the conclusion that future money would be in communication. One part of their submission to the competition was the theory of how communication would move from cellular communicating (at the time being) to another dimension beyond "traditional" technology, simply sending your thoughts; reading others' minds. (In the abstract of the theoretical part of the competition submission, they questioned the destiny of the human race, recognizing the possible chaos beyond a time when the human thought would be "on air..") The concrete part of Lindfors' and Relanders' submission included proposals for the actual aiding devices supporting telepathical communication: Lindfors designed four different sets of "telepathy amplifiers", all including a sender aswell as a receiver. Lindfors said: "A thought is an extension of the soul, and the devises extending that thought to a second mind better be beautiful." He did, in other words, design jewelry for the human head. Lindfors and Relander received a medal of honour by the Triennale di Milano 1986 for their project. Photo: Lars Rebers.
The Museum of Applied Arts Helsinki arranged an invitational exhibition deliberately for young designers, students, in 1987. Lindfors, who at the time being was doing concrete, physical workshop-level research on optional ways to use cane as a furniture material, participated with three thrones. The three large-size thrones were, apart from some structural and technical steel parts, created and built from various thicknesses and types of cane. They were sculptures interprutating the worlds of the worldleaders at the time as far as Lindfors saw it; Reagan of the west, offensive and aggressive (the scorpion); Gorbatchov of the east, unpredictable (the sea anemone); Zao Ziyang, China's prime minister, of the third world (hiv). Despite the strong poetic and conceptual content in the pieces, these "thrones for the world leaders" were ergonomically sound and innovative: They clearly showed that Lindfors, after five years at the university fo r applied arts within the furniture and interior architecture dept., was searching for a direction in the borderline of applied and fine arts. His room with the three thrones at the "Metaxis" exhibition in Fall 1987 at the Museum of Applied Arts, Helsinki, was Lindfors' first media break-through in Finland. Lindfors' search for a direction between the visual arts and the industrial arts continued several years until being defined as two independent and pararell careers at the beginning of the 90's. In 1989 the three Metaxis thrones Reagan, Gorbatchov and Zao Ziyang were "tested" by Jack Lang and the minister of foreign affairs of France at the invitational exhibition "L'Europe des Createurs" at Grand Palais, Paris. Photo: Kari Holopainen. Images: G COMMISSIONED SCULPTURE Winged Victory. 1995. Winged Victory is a wing-shaped outdoor sculpture which spins, always standing against the wind. The structure is welded aluminum covered with clear resined fiberglass and the tower is equipped with two clocks-one on each side of "the wing" -as well as with internal outdoor halogen spots. Height: 7m., width: 4m., depth: 0,45m. /23ft. X 14ft. X 18". Swatch© commissioned 10 international designers/artists (among others Arad, Mariscal, Newson) to create a clock tower sculpture to celebrate the upcoming Olympic Games in Atlanta Summer 1996. They were all unveiled in different cities around the world during the year of 1995. Stefan Lindfors' sculpture was unveiled in front of UCLA, Westwood, California (Los Angeles) in October 1995. Winged Victory was finally moved to Atlanta where it represented the pavillion of Swatch¨ during the Olympic Games, Summer 1996. Photo: © Esto Photographics, 139-141 Images:
Permanent exterior sculpture installation on the facade of the Gershwin Hotel. Stainless steel structures covered with fiberglass and clear casted resins; artificial interior lights. Project consists of multiple pieces sticking out from the wall, some of which perhaps remind of tongues, some of which remind of flames. When writer Gordon Sander introduced Lindfors to Mr. Urs Jakob, owner of the Gershwin, in winter 1995 in New York City, Jakob asked Lindfors to "do something about the facade of the Hotel", since he felt it needed attention. The building is located in the middle of the block on the north side of 27tth Street, between Madison and 5th Avenues, in lower mid-town Manhattan. Lindfors proposed an installation of gigantic dragonfly wings rising all the way up to the top of the 13-story building. This proposal did not in Mr. Jakob's mind represent the "Gershwin-concept" enough, and Lindfors started over again. (Sketches for the "dragonfly proposal" are published in the exhibition catalogue "Freedom of Speech, Stefan Lindfors, sculpture" 1996, ISBN: 0-9652370-0-1). The final concept consists of man-size, three-dimensional pieces climbing up the facade, aswell as four several meter long "tongues" sticking out of each arch above each of the entrance doors. The first three first stories of the 13-story high building are painted red. The excecution of the "Tongues & Flames" installation is on-going and growing: The first two flames around the main entrance were unveiled in Summer 1997, and a second unveiling including the four "entrance-arch tongues" took place on September 8, 1998. The tongue sticking out from the arch above the main entrance doors, also continues into the hotel, licking the seiling approx. 12 meters into the lobby. More flames will be added on in another two sessions, until the entire Hotel all the way up to the roof -hosted by the four gigantic and vital tongues- is on fire. Drawing: Stefan Lindfors, 148
André Balasz, owner of The Mercer Hotel located in the northwest corner of Prince and Mercer Streets, SoHo, New York City, commissioned Lindfors to do a permanent ceiling piece/"light piece", for the street-level lobby of the hotel, opening in 1998. Mr. Balasz, also owner of the Chateau Marmont, Hollywood, California, had commissioned interior designer Christian LegŽr to do the interiors and Hervé Descottes to do the lighting. Balasz had no intentions to "fill the lobby with art", but he was interested in something to balance up LegŽr's interior. Lindfors built and installed a 10 meter long sculpture hanging from the ceiling in the space in front of the elevators. The sculpture has a stainless steel structure, covered with fiberglass and clear-casted resins. It uses artificial (halogen) light, and was unveiled in April, 1998. Photo: Ramak Fazel, 149,150
The "Concorde" was Lindfors' first permanent public sculpture commission. The eleven meter long sculpture hangs in the ceiling above the escalators in the domestic terminal hall of the Helsinki Airport. It has a body of stainless sheets, and wings of stainless steel and clear-resined fiberglass- and cotton fabrics. Concorde was unveiled in concunction with the opening of the new Domestic Terminal Hall in January 1992. Lindfors said the Concorde ended up becoming something of a crossing between a mechanic flying machine by the human specie, and an organic one by nature. Photo: Marco Melander.
Cyclus is a permanent public exterior sculpture installation covering the park in front of the Ostrobothnian Museum in the city of Vaasa, Finland. Three "identical" rows each consisting of: a) a high-powered gas lamp on pedistal of concrete and steel, b) a silver-casted dragon fly casted from a typical spiece in the Vaasa region on a pedistal of concrete and steel, and c) a 3 meter high screen of steel with fiberglass and clear-casted resins. The strong light beams from the gas lamps (equipped with lenses) hit the silver-casted dragon flies after a distance of ten meters, which then produce a large shadow of the insects onto the transparent fiberglass screens, after an additional distance of ten meters from the casted insect. The large-sized installation is an hommage to the light on the level of the city of Vaasa: Summers where the sun practically never dissappears, winters with very dark months. The lights in Cyclus burn 24 hrs. a day; always reminding of the organisms (represented here by the dragonfly), that come and go; continously renewing themselves year by year. Size: Approx.: 20 meters X 30 meters X 3 meters high. Photo: Marco Melander.
In Summer 1995 Lindfors participated in an invitational temporary sculpture exhibition on the east side waterfront of Mariehamn, city of "The Aaland Islands", an archipelago located in the sea between Finland and Sweden, belonging to Finland. Lindfors participated with an 11 meter long sculpture, "Radar". The city of Mariehamn, the city were Lindfors was born, later asked whether it would be possible to modifie "Radar" for permanent exterior purposes in the same area as where the 1995 Summer exhibition took place; immediately north of the East Harbor of Mariehamn. After strong a strong media-debate between the to local papers, guided mainly by certain local politicians against "the Radar project", the new "Radar II" was unveiled on the originally assigned grounds in November 1997. There have been now official protests since the erecetion of the permanent sculpture. The first sculpture, "Radar", was a rusted steel structured shell, reminding of a whale or an upside sailing boat keel. Inside the 12 meter long hollow steel-rod structure a sail was installed, living and singing in the wind. The new, permanent "Radar II" was modified from the original steel structure, but Lindfors removed the sail and replaced it with strucutural large steel-plate rings forming a spine throughout the visible interior body of the sculpture. "Radar II", a welded rusted and surface-treated steelstructure, is lit from inside. It is a symbol for the man-made land marks in various shapes and forms and materials so typical for the archipelago culture surrounding the coast of Finland and Sweden. "Radar II" looks out over the sea southwest of the Mariehamn's East Harbor. Photo: Marco Melander. Images:
The "Ray" is a private commission for the residential grounds of Mr. and Mrs. Kaj & sa Rönnlund in the City of Vaasa, Finland. The piece is located on the grounds between the main residential building and the waterfront dock and sauna. Lindfors felt, that there was such a strong presence of both forest & fields (=flora) and sea, that a hybrid between the sea and the land species was needed for the Rönnlund grounds. Since the wind plays a central role in this location right off the coast, the "Ray" also shows the direction of the wind. The 3-meter high spinning exterior sculpture has a stainless steel structure of 6mm. roundstock, and it's covered with blue-tinted polyester resined fiberglass. Photo: Marco Melander. Images:
The ten meter high "Totem" sculpture was part of an invitational exhibition, June-September 2000, covering the park area downtown Helsinki called "The Töölö Bay", which is framed in by the Finlandia building (Aalto), the Kiasma building(Holl) and the railway station (Saarinen). this "park exhibition" was part of Helsnki 2000 Cultural City. Lindfors said that he wanted to make a "monument for a time when super-size globally-owned corporations were ruling the world". On the other hand Lindfors said he was interested in how hair-thin steelrod, after being structured in a grid eventually would transform from a heterogenic three-dimensional web into mass, after the gridwork being dense enough. The missile-shaped "Totem" sculpture is 10 meters high, 2.5 meters in diameter on ground, and it holds approx. 6 (six) kilometers of 6mm. steelrod. The surface of the sculpture is rust. Photo: Marco Melander. H SCULPTURE EXHIBITIONS Heart!. 1988. "Heart!" was Lindfors' first one-man exhibiton of sculpture. He was invited by the Turku-based gallery Titanik to have a one-man exhibition in Fall 1988, and he built the works in the workshop facilities of the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, where he was still a student, preparing to graduate by the end of the same year. His exhibition consisted of five sculptures, all interprutations of the heart. Lindfors in later publications listed issues such as "divorce, traffic jam, aging, jealousy, career, public pressure" etc. as thoughts behind his five hearts. They were named "The Weight", "The Pump", "The Nerve", "Self-Portrait" and "Fair". In the man-size or larger sculptures there was no light included (except in "The Pump"), and the main material was welded steel. Other materials were cane and fiberglass. Photo: Kari Holopainen. Images: Reges Insectorum. 1991. "Reges Insectorum" was Lindfors first one-man show in a museum, and his first major one-man exhibition of sculpture. Mr. Bengt von Bonsdorff, director of Amos, invited Lindfors to have an exhibition in the approx. 700 square meter space of the museum from January to March 1991. Lindfors created large-size sculptures with Latin names, mainly in welded steel and fiberglass, some of which included light. "Reges Insectorum" (=Latin for "The Emperors of the Insects"), was a collection of pieces as an hommage to the organisms. "On one hand", Lindfors said, "the contradiciton of a beautiful cocoon giving birth to a dangerous scorpion interests me". The theme "beauty and danger" was thus in a way typical for all the pieces. "On the other hand", Lindfors said, "if we don't listen to the warnings of nature we are going to die. -Just like when the grasshoppers came to Egypt." Lindfors quotes French authorJean Dorst in the exhibiton catalogue, giving an example of the DDT-poison effect on our earth. The sculptures had latin insect names although they were modofied by Lindfors: "Attacus, Zygonyx, Ixodes, Demodex, Xantophan, Azteza, Ogyris and Goliathus." Photo: Kari Holopainen. Images:
This was Lindfors' first sculpture project in the U.S. "Freedom of Speech" had its first opening at the Radar gallery in Kansas City, Missouri, in April 1995, and was later shown in Washington D.C in May-June 1996,and in Los Angeles in October-November 1996. As a result of this work Lindfors was given several permanent commissions in New York City, as well as gallery shows in other North American cities. Freedom of Speech has been reviewed in, among others, Art in America, Sculpture, Washington Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and LA Weekly. The six (6) large-sized installations have Greek names, the general material used is welded steel structure surfaced with fiberglass and clear casted resins. All works use artifical light. Some of the installations use over-head projectors with red-painted real and dried insects as projected material. Epistémé, Epikrisis and Ethos (Knowledge, Wisdom and Character). Ephémeron X 15 (Short-lived insect). Ontarkeia (the Authority of being). Demos (the People). Cacaphonia (Chaotic Sound). Marathon II (Long Distance Contest). Epikos (the Word, the Idea, the Thought). The large sculptures and/or -installations, were created under the general thought that time is a circular, repeated fucntion, and Lindfors simply thought that the life-cycle of the insects is beautiful enough to serve as the tool for conveying this idea. "We did in fact learn, that the world is round, but we still like to think of time s a linear function" Lindfors said. Photo: Marco Melander. Images: I SCENOGRAPHY Labra. 2000. In the Spring of 1995, Ismo Alanko, Finnish rock star, songwriter and musician and close friends with Lindfors, had been performing at the inaugural opening of Lindfors' one-man exhibition "Freedom of Speech" at Radar, in Kansas City, Missouri. The two friends decided that, after having "worked for each others projects" a few times (exhibition opening performances versus CD-covers), Alanko and Lindfors actually could do a project together, integrating their fields of practise.In 1996 they started working on an idea for a touring performance which would include a visual experience guided by live-performed music. Among other things. Alanko's and Lindfors' worlds burn togehter in a closed globe seating 300, performing a 1.5 hour spectacular event guided by live music, live dance, and live lightingperformances. Originally the idea from the Christian "Messe", but with a "religion" of their own, had been Alanko's and Lindfors' only guideline, apart ofcourse, from the touring aspect. Alanko and Lindfors wrote the script for the 1,5 hour long "performance" togehter, and they both performed. Alanko wrote the music aswell as the (finnish) lyrics, and composed the music together with his band lsmo Alanko Säätiö. Lindfors designed the arena; a 10 meter high globe/hemisphere, 14 meters in diameter at the ground, which was "sliced" in six parts all of which could move indepently out from the globe even with some 60 people sitting on each slice. The globe was an orange-painted steel structure covered with transparent inflated plastic sheets. Lindfors also created the concept for lighting (with expertice help and excecution by Marko Kettunen), and the inflatable transparent plastic costumes (with expertice help and excecution by Elina Vättö). Lindfors who also performes throughout the performance (for example by opening the 1,5 hrs. performance coming down 10 meters through an inflated plastic tube headfirst) did all of the changes in the lighting aswell as overhead-projector based light-installations live . Lindfors designed the globe-structure to fit in two medium size semi-trucks or similar. The name was finally determined as "Labra", and Alanko and Lindfors declared "The Right to be Confused" as the guideline to the performance. "Labra" was performed 24 times within the premises of The Cable Factory, Helsinki, Finland, February -March 2000, and no touring had been scheduled art this time. The ticket sales for the 24 performances was 94%. The closed-in globe-like arena with its tiny 3-meter diameter stage forces the audience and peformers extremely close to each other throughout the 1,5 hours. This sets high demands on everyone; accoustics, lighting, performers and the audience, making Alanko's and Lindfors' "LABRA" a unique experience in any category of performance art. Photo: Marco Melander 174, 175, 176, Images: J PORTRAIT Photo: Marco Melander
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