Bertil Fridhagen

Bertil Fridhagen, owner of the world’s most intense stare, was born in 1905 in Norra Sandsjo parish, Jonkoping country. This giant of Swedish design grew up in Bodafors, home of I’m-not-sure-exactly-what apart from Bertil Fridhagen, and soon followed his carpenter father into the family trade.

Having gleaned every last bit of woodworking know-how from his dad, Bertie left him behind in a cloud of sawdust and followed his dreams all the way to the doorstep of AB Svenska Möbelfabrikerna (and more importantly Carl Erik Ekholm) whose teaching he remained under before studying further in Stockholm. 

In 1937 he returned to Bodafors and worked at Sandsjö Möbelfabrik to help them out for a few years and plump up his portfolio. Two years later, Svenska Möbelfabrikerna – rightly identifying a rising star – would pinch him from a gutted Sandsjö Möbelfabrik and make him chief architect, succeeding his old tutor, Ekholm.

By 1964, pretty much anyone who owned a house owned his furniture. At one stage, his models accounted for two thirds of Bodafors’ home furniture production. This was a significant amount, especially considering that other giants of design like Carl Malmsten had models that only accounted for a quarter. 

One of Bertie’s biggest sales successes was the “Variett” series, many of which included these iconic handles, a glorious exercise in restraint, singularly unobtrusive and satisfying, with just a dash of the anal retentive.

Like a trail of wooden caterpillars inching towards freedom, they found their symbolic counterpart in a man who (if his headshots are anything to go by) dealt in straight lines.

In the latter part of his life, he racked up loads of awards as well as designing the Bodafors church, which is apparently quite beautiful but seems more like a postscript to his interior offerings. Sadly he lived to see 90s furniture design and died shortly thereafter in 1993.