Why are all the sofas on the market exactly the same? That was the question I was left with after going couch hunting this spring. After three children and a dog had grown into and partially gnawed their way through the corner sofa in the basement living room, it was time to replace it. (Incidentally, I also found a dried-out dead frog between the cushions when we carried it out, so there may have been tiny lapses in the cleaning routines.) Photo: private and a bit revealing We couldn’t sit in it any longer, much less eat in it. Family coziness was in free fall. We had to get a new sofa. The sofa’s two tasks So, with the realization that the family had to have a new sofa, one of life’s big questions entered the landing stage: What is important about a sofa, really? It depends on the room and the buyer, of course, but let’s stick to my/our needs, then – which are unlikely to be very unique. We wanted a corner sofa that would stand in a corner. The sofa should face the TV. It also had to work for card games and socializing in the evening. Preferably some eating. Ok, so you have to be able to sit comfortably – at least four people. And you have to be able to lie down and toss, a couple of times (with your face towards the TV). Comfortable, soft. But tight enough that you don’t prolapse halfway into the potato chip bag. The second job of the sofa is to look good. I rummaged through the big furniture chains on the internet. Facsimile: Bohus Photo: Skeidar Facsimile: Ikea Photo: Sofacompany Ikea, Bohus, Skeidar, Sofacompany and so on. Very nice, but… Everything is exactly the same! Professor Strøm “I completely agree with you”, replied Sigurd Strøm to the “aren’t the sofas exactly the same” email I had sent him. “Yes!” I thought. Sigurd Strøm is a professor of design at the University of the Arts in Oslo. He also works as a furniture designer, mostly commissioned by larger companies. He has a small and nice workshop relatively central in Oslo – here he hatches new ideas and carves prototypes. (Before you get mad because your sofa is different – both Sigurd and I understand that there are other sofas. But here we are talking about the dominant mainstream sofa market in Norway in 2023.) – The fact that sofas have become more and more popular has happened gradually for at least 15-20 years, says Sigurd Strøm. The reason is a bit complex, but quite easy to understand. The sofa buyer wants a sofa that is not too expensive. (I recognize myself.) The most popular modern sofas (around NOK 15,000++) are mass-produced. To keep prices down, manufacturers have to sell a lot of each model. The body/skeleton of these sofas is cut out of a type of foam plastic. When they are cut out, this quickly becomes an item by the metre. The sofa manufacturers look at what we buy, they design and carve out many examples of a sofa they are almost certain the market will want. And then the new sofa quickly becomes similar to something that’s already popular, doesn’t it? – And the margins of all furniture manufacturers are small, says Strøm. This is how it has developed, slowly but surely: New sofas resemble previously produced sofas, in sofa generation after sofa generation after sofa generation. In the end, it is difficult to tell the difference between them. Square, gray and beige sofas. It is I, we – the market, the demand – that govern the furniture manufacturers’ choices. It is our “fault”. We obviously love these sofas. Sigurd Strøm thinks it is partly about what we are exposed to. Media, social media … Square sofas. – But they haven’t always been as similar, as square, as gray as they are now? – No, they don’t have that. If we look back at the 1950s and 1960s in particular, we find more freedom of form and humanistic design, says Strøm. Author Mats Linder specializes in Nordic design. He didn’t mind asking when I contacted him to ask if he had pictures of typical sofas from this period. Stop and take a little visual bath in old sofas here – Mats has written the captions. Gerhard Berg’s watercolor of the sofa group Gjende. It was made with flat nosag springs and regular stuffing. Produced by Hareid Bruk in the second half of the 1950s. Photo: Mats Linder Fredrik Kayser’s classic 807 was produced by Vatne Lenestolfabrikk approx. 1965. Photo: Vatne Møbler Gerhard Berg’s sofa Norse was produced by LK Hjelle from the first half of the 1960s. Photo: Bjørn Winsnes Karl Edvard Korseth’s and Thorbjørn Rygh’s chair and sofa No. 15, also called Cozy, was produced by LK Hjelle from the mid-1950s. Photo: Mats Linder’s archive Karl Edvard Korseth’s voluminous sofa and armchair resemble a model he designed for PI Langlo in 1963. Photo: unknown photographer / Mats Linder’s archive Sigurd Resell’s form-fitting sofa 130 in leather for Vatne Lenestolfabrikk was for those with a slightly thicker wallet. Photo: Vatne Møbler Danish Arne Vodder designed the sofa Bali for Vatne Lenestolfabrikk sometime in the second half of the 1950s. Typical of the time is the simple underframe that supports the sofa construction. Photo: Mats Linder’s archive Arne Halvorsen’s sofa 2010 for PI Langlo was produced in the early 1960s. Molded foam plastic contributed to being able to create the well-balanced organic forms. Photo: Mats Linder’s archive Torbjørn Afdal’s Winston for Nesjestranda Møbelfabrikk came on the market around 1960. The finely curved wooden armrests are inspired by Danish furniture art. Photo: Blomqvist Fredrik Kayser’s sofa 740 for Vatne Lenestolfabrikk is upholstered in colorful colors that add an extra flair to the interior. Photo: Mats Linder’s archive Professor Strøm believes that the sofa’s status has declined, that the sofa has become a consumer item. In the past, people spent a lot more money on sofas and furniture. They were decorative objects. And they were inherited. Some got the heavy clock, others got the sofa. The sofa – the previous penis extender Consumables? Well, I don’t know. But I think I understand what he means. I may not be looking for a sofa that will necessarily outlive me. How much can you spend on a car without someone looking askance at you? NOK 500,000? Yes. Many have done this. We take out our own car loans with high interest rates for a vehicle that loses value quickly and a lot. It is completely normal. But buying a sofa for, well, NOK 50–60–70,000? (If you go up in that price range, the selection and variety is quite a bit rawer.) Not as many people do or have considered that. There are no sofa loans at the bank, as it were. Or? – No, we do not have our own loans for sofas, says press manager at Danske Bank Øystein Andre Schmidt. You can possibly bake it into the home loan or ask for credit – or save, if that price range is something for you. It’s not for me. Used? “Can’t you go to Finn?” A colleague thought there was a bit too much sofa wailing in the monitor. It is understandable. “You can probably find a rather nice and different sofa for a usable sum on the second-hand market.” I got close to 20,000 hits on the word “sofa” on Finn.no. There were lots of sofas there. Facsimile: finn.no Yes, yes. Used sofa. Hm. I had to go a few rounds with myself. Does a used sofa have too much unknown history for my taste? Will the thought of what might have happened on the couch before it was mine distract me in the middle of a Farmen duel? (A certain Rune Rudberg photograph in a sofa is still on the retina.) You can redo it, of course? I found out that it costs between NOK 15,000 and 25,000 to reupholster a sofa – depending on how complicated it is. Quite a lot of money. All the requirements… It’s not easy, this with a sofa. There are many considerations to take when a sofa manufacturer designs a sofa. One thing is the economy and the market and that. But there are also other considerations, or standards, if you will, that limit the design possibilities. The sofa should perhaps be able to stand against a wall, a corner sofa often in a corner. Normal living room size. And then there are the ergonomic standards, which say something about height, depth, angle of the back and such. These are not statutory rules, this here, but… – Grandma at 80 should be able to get off the sofa. It is not easy if it is very low and deep, for example, says Sigurd Strøm. – The sofa is more complicated than the chair, quite simply. It is not difficult to notice in Sigurd that he likes the chair better than the sofa. There is much greater freedom there. It should not solve so many tasks – it is not tied up in so many different needs. It relates to the individual, while the sofa must satisfy several people at the same time. Yes, no, how did it end? Yes, now you will hear. After many evenings of sofa hunting on the internet, we (the wife and I) finally ended up in a huge furniture centre. We wandered back and forth between three rather similar sofas. An interior designer I spoke to in connection with this matter advised me that an initially somewhat boring sofa could become very cool if you thought a little differently about the fabric and the colour. All the gray sofas on the internet can usually be delivered in something other than grey. Ta-da! NEW SOFA: It currently lacks legs. That’s because the legs we chose made the sofa way too high. But we have to sort that out. It turned out to be a square sofa that looks like any other sofa – but it’s green! It can be even more difficult to spot the next frog that mysteriously climbs onto the sofa, but that’s the risk you have to take if you want to be that much of a cowboy when it comes to the sofa. PS! Change on the horizon? I have spoken to many people in connection with this matter. One of them, who works for a large furniture chain, agreed that it was very similar – but, he also said: – Now we will soon come up with something that I think will stand out in the crowd. The conversation took place before the summer holidays. I don’t know anything else – except that it will happen soon. Early autumn, I was told. Keep an eye out! Hi! I hope you enjoyed this issue. If you have tips for other things (not necessarily furniture) that you think we in the culture department should write about, please send me an e-mail. The rest of news Kultur’s long readings can be found here. Here are some things I think you’ll like:
ttn-69
Why are all the sofas square and grey? – Culture
