Design DNA
Once revolutionary, its presence in homes across the globe pays testament to this triumph of Swedish design
Why String’s modular shelving is still winning new fans at 70
Scandinavian design might be missing an icon had a Swedish publisher not hatched a plan to get its customers to buy more books in 1949. Bonnier’s call to design an affordable bookshelf attracted 194 entries, but none was quite so neat as the solution proffered by a pair of architecture students named Nisse and Kajsa Strinning. The winning product had to be flexible, stylish and easy to ship – something a young couple would continue to fill with Bonnier’s books for years to come. Their ‘String’ concept had it all in spades.
The distinctive ladder framework echoed an earlier innovation by Nisse, who had used the same plastic-coated wire to fashion a dish rack for Swedish brand Elfa. A simple starter pack of two side panels and three wood veneer shelves presented the public with a structure straight out of the box, which could be slotted together to suit the heights of their books. The concept is now a staple of flat-pack furniture. Back then, it was a revelation.
Modularity proved String’s master stroke: though rooted in domesticity, its capacity for near-endless configuration saw architects scale up orders for offices and libraries. As sales of the shelves skyrocketed – first in Sweden, then beyond – Nisse never wavered from his strictly minimalist principles: a free-standing shelf developed in the 1950s was discontinued when he deemed the wire criss-cross backing required for stability one deviation too far.
As family life shifted, so did style, prompting production of String to cease in 1974. When Swedish entrepreneurs Peter Erlandsson and Pär Josefsson revived the brand with the Strinnings’ blessing in 2004, customers’ imaginations became a catalyst for innovation. Discovering the shelves were routinely repurposed as shoe racks, they honed in on the hallway, developing a metal design with perforations for all manner of hangers and hooks. Though original String shelves were by that time a cult buy, the plastic-coated wire waspronetopeeling,sothemanufacturingprocesswentunderthemicroscope. Now, there are String solutions for everything from work stations to wine glasses. The compact ‘Pocket’ design, triumphantly launched in 2005, proved Nisse’s final gift; he passed away the following year (stringfurniture.com).