Love, Västra Götaland

Västra Götaland (pronounced Vestra Yotaland) has a rich design heritage dating back to the 1800s, which saw the region attract students from all over the world due to its groundbreaking crafts institutions. The roots of the Swedish textile industry can also be traced to the area while, today, there is an emphasis on traditional furniture production methodology. Boasting several major design programs, a ceramics centre and thriving automotive industry, the region can claim to produce some of Sweden's most exciting and sought after designers.

Västra Götaland is located in south west Sweden and includes 49 principalities, stretching across a long coastline facing the North Sea and a beautiful archipelago. Such close proximity to fresh sea water gives the region its reputation for lavish seafood, with its oysters said to be the best in the world. Summer draws tourists in their hordes as its coastline fills with boats and yachts. The Bohuslän area, which nestles against Norway, is one of Sweden's most popular holiday destinations.

Should the coast become too crowded it's not too far to Dalsland, home to Sweden's largest network of lakes. Many of them join Dalsland's canal, a 250km long channel which slices through the deep untouched forest landscape, lovingly called "Sweden's Southernmost Wilderness". Nearby Steneby School of Craft and Design provides intense training in traditional crafts and, along with dynamic arts collective Not Quite i Fengersfors, is one of the reasons many young designers choose this area as their settling place.

Sweden’s second largest city, Göteborg, lies in Västra Götaland, with its wide, expansive harbour. A humble travel ticket will take you out from the city by boat and towards the archipelago and its rocky outcrops.

During the 1900s Göteborg was one of the world’s largest and important ports; Sweden’s gateway to the world. The port itself still dominates the city, remaining Scandinavia’s largest, however Göteborg as a city has undergone a transformation into a burgeoning creative hub, housing some of the world’s top creative agencies and denim giant, Nudie.

The Faculty of Arts at the University of Gothenburg is Sweden’s largest and internationally renowned for its wide-reaching courses in photography, film, editing, fine art, decorative art, many streams of literature study, opera and theatre. The city also boasts Sweden’s only dedicated design museum Röhsska, which awards the annual Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize - the world’s biggest design award worth 1million Swedish Kronor.

As early as the 1600s Västra Götaland was actively functioning as Sweden's textile centre. Creating goods from its local suppliers and those in Sjuhäradsbygden (the area surrounding Borås) while its resellers and pedlars sold its textiles across Sweden. The textile industry expanded with vast numbers of spinning mills, weavers and dying houses emerging across the region and, when the clothing industry took off in the 1900s, it was Borås which became Sweden's fashion capital. Today's fashion industry in Sweden lies in Västra Götaland, housing design offices, warehouses and logistics for international brands like Lindex, Kapp-Ahl and Gina Tricot. Sjuhäradsbygden is responsible for many of the world's leading developments and movements in technical textiles. The company F.O.V. Fabrics AB, with its in-house production facilities, supplies to the likes of Gore-Tex and numerous European prestige and luxury brands across multiple industries.

Another interesting example is Ludvig Svensson, which is the world's leading supplier of technical climate screens for regulating the temperature of greenhouses in the horticulture market as well as dynamic interior textile solutions. Oxeon is a young company specialising in woven carbon fibre tape for reinforcing fabrics in order to create lighter, stronger composite materials. Svensson Markspelle and Almedahls are other fine examples of large suppliers of textiles for the contract market. Kasthall and Bolon are two other companies in the area working with flooring.

The Swedish School of Textile in Borås is a progressive school, steeped in tradition which offers students many courses and lines of specialisation in economics, technological advances or artistic. Its Smart Textile department drives research into future textiles and R&D in cooperation with the textile industry in Sjuhäradsbygden and SP, Sweden's Technical Testing Institute, headquartered in Borås.

Smart Textiles' ambitious goal is to become the world's leader in developing technical textiles and advanced textile concepts such as textile reinforced concrete and textiles that react emotionally to heat and cold. The fashion design students are liberated creatively by a free and unrestricted course program which encourages experimental design. The work of its students has appeared on the catwalks during London Fashion Week.

At the southern tip of Sweden's largest lake, Vänern (which borders Västra Götaland) lies Lidköping. The city has been creating quality porcelain for over 100 years and continues to do so today, despite not having a functioning factory any more.

The industrial production has been replaced by the Rörstrand Center and ceramics museum, with many artists shops, collectives and studios to explore. The center contains many rental studios which grant all artists access to the huge industrial kilns and other facilities that most contemporary ceramicists find irresistibly alluring.

A short trip away from Göteborg at Nääs is a beautiful location which became a unique centre for the training of craftsmen in the 1800s. It was founded and based around the principles of Otto Salomon, a renowned figure in the history of Swedish craft, whose name and work (the ideals of Slöjd or Sloyd) lives on internationally and whose actions helped found the Center for Sloyd and Building preservation at Nääs.

The furniture industry in Västra Götaland is located in the town of Tibro. Historically the home of traditional home furnishings, today the locality acts as home to about 50 different furniture companies operating mainly in the contract sector including Offecct, Lundbergs, Ire and SA Möbler. Supporting the industry are specialist firms and subcontractors like Senab and Input.

The Tibro municipality is enjoying a strong developmental phase and, together with Möbelriket in Småland, has lofty ambitions to become northern Europe's most important meeting place for international design. The Inredia building is flagged as the crux of this movement and a unifier of academia, industry and policy influencers.

With Tibro close by, it's no real surprise that so many young and emerging Swedish designers choose to base themselves in Göteborg. In a relatively short space of time, the city has emerged from its dying industrial past to rediscover itself as a new Göteborg, a place where creativity is celebrated and encouraged. Staffan Holm, Daniel Rybakken, Sigrid Strömgren and Fredrik Färg are a few of its designers who enjoy widespread international acclaim while a vast number of new designers snap at their heels.

Fulo, Modern Times and Brikolör are other home-grown Göteborg talents and design collectives also riding the new wave of western Swedish design. A movement buoyed and built upon advanced material technology, heightened emotional content, quality in production, sustainability and romantic references to the influential past of this beautiful Swedish region.

Text: Anna-Stina Lindén
This article is taken from the magazine "Swedish Love Stories"

www.konsthantverkscentrum.se

www.rorstrandcenter.se

www.smarttextiles.se