Soon we will be in the 6th week of the year, a week that has become synonymous with Stockholm Design Week. Many of the world's best in furniture and lighting will be in Stockholm to check out the latest in Scandinavian design at Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair. With the trade fair at the middle of it all, the entire town buzzes with around 60 events, installations and parties.
Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair is the world’s largest meeting place for Scandinavian furniture and lighting design. The trade fair attracts around 40,000 visitors, and around 6,000 international purchasers, architects, designers and journalists arrive in Stockholm from more than 60 countries. Roughly 700 companies exhibit their furniture, lighting and textile products. The countries with the most exhibitors are Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway. Approximately 80 percent of all of the exhibiting companies come from the Scandinavian countries.
Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair fills Stockholmsmässan’s 70,000 m2 to the brim with the latest products for both home and public environments. The trade fair offers multiple inspirational exhibitions and an extensive program of seminars. This year the program is more extensive than ever before with the introduction of, among other things, Stockholm Design Talks – a new forum for knowledge and discussions about furniture and interior design. Another addition is the new design area, Twelve, where 12 designers display designs that are typical of their style and philosophy.
One of the trade fair’s definite highlights is Guest of Honour, an internationally recognized designer who is invited to create a lounge at Stockholmsmässan’s Entrance Hall during the fair. In 2014 this invitation has been extended to the Danish-Italian design duo, GamFratesi. Previous Guests of Honour include Patricia Urquiola, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Naoto Fukasawa, Konstantin Grcic, Giulio Cappellini, Ineke Hans, Paul Smith, Arik Levy, Inga Sempé and Oki Sato/Nendo.
Another highlight is Greenhouse, where new talents are given the opportunity to show their prototypes and meet furniture and lighting manufacturers.
Held during the same week as Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair is Stockholm Design Week, which centers around the trade fair. The first-ever Design Week was held in 2002 and today it consists of more than 60 design-related events held at different locations around the city. The combination of Stockholm Design Week and Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair means that buyers, architects, designers and journalists from all over the world now permanently set aside Week 6 in their calendars for a journey to Stockholm.
“Design Week functions an industry meeting place even outside of Stockholmsmässan’s halls. It’s important to us that our visitors get as positive a total experience from the week as possible. The days are jam-packed with business opportunities at the fair and the evenings are crammed with get-togethers and parties. As the initiator behind Stockholm Design Week, we are pleased that the week is growing and developing,” says Cecilia Nyberg, Event Manager for Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair and Stockholm Design Week.
The trade fair publishes “The Official Guide to Stockholm Design Week”, which is also available as an app and a website, www.stockholmdesignweek.com, that lists all of the week’s events as well as tips to Stockholm’s best shopping, restaurants and bars. The app is available for download from the App Store or Android Market. Official hashtags to use and follow are #2014sff and #2014sdw.
Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair will be held February 4-8, 2014, at Stockholmsmässan.
The fair is only open to industry visitors February 4-7. The general public is also welcome on Saturday, February 8.
Caption: Glass Elephant - Signature exhibition of Stockholm Design Week 2013 Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair in collaboration with ABB. Glass objects in the photo is made by Simon Klenell
For more information, please visit http://www.stockholmfurniturefair.com/ or contact:
• Cecilia Nyberg, Event Manager, tel +46 8 749 43 86,cecilia.nyberg@stockholmsmassan.se
• Lotta Signeul, Press Officer, tel +46 708 19 99 19, lotta.signeul@stockholmsmassan.se