Word: scandinavian
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Swedish business for more than a century, Marcus and his brother Jacob (who died two years ago) rebuilt Sweden's industrial strength after the Kreuger crash in 1932. Eventually taking control of such multinational giants as Electrolux, L.M. Ericsson and Saab-Scania, Wallenberg also helped to establish the Scandinavian Airlines System in 1946 and controlled companies that employed one of every eight working Swedes. A national tennis champion as a young man, he shunned ostentation and once said of his estimable family: "We're nothing special. We come from simple, ordinary stock, peasants, priests and a bishop...
Since then, Nordic designers have given every European style their distinct mark. Denmark's Georg Jensen's silver and opal Dragonfly brooch (1904) and fellow Dane Erik Magnussen's Grasshopper brooch (1907) of silver and coral are unmistakably art nouveau. They are also unmistakably Scandinavian. Like virtually all the objects in this exhibition, they show the patient toil brought to bear on stubborn, natural materials. This is what Frank Lloyd Wright called "organic" design...
...objects in the show that were clearly conceived and engineered on the drawing board are far less appealing and not characteristically Scandinavian. The floor and table lamps (1979) of Denmark's Claus Bonderup and Torsten Thorup are dated high-tech novelty items. Norwegians Svein Gusrud and Hans Christian Mengshoel's Balans Activ chair contraption (1979), made in Norway, is equally uncharming. It consists of a kneepad connected by steel tubes to a padded seat, all of which is supposed to relieve pressure on the spine. It is, instead, a pain in the eyes...
...foremost masterpieces in modern Scandinavian design are still those of the familiar masters, among them Aalto, Wirkkala, Denmark's Arne Jacobsen, and Sweden's Gunnar Asplund and Sven Markelius. But there are also many new names to reassure us that the tradition need not regress to mannerist neodeco or yield to the common denominator of market-researched commercialism. Scandinavian design, in fact, is still as vigorous at the end of this century as it was at the beginning...
Lutherans in the U.S. have struggled for much of the 20th century to overcome divisions inside their ranks. Personality conflicts and doctrinal quarrels have divided the churches, which were made up mostly of German and Scandinavian immigrants and hence were also split by language and geography. But painstaking diplomacy, conducted among as many as 18 denominations that existed a century ago, produced by 1963 a melding into two giant branches: the American Lutheran Church (A.L.C.), a power in the Midwest; and the Lutheran Church in America (L.C.A.), with substantial membership in the Northeast...