B
edow takes up a 65-square
metre space on the island of
Södermalm in Stockholm. It’s
a corner studio on the ground floor of
what used to be a police station from
1905 to 1977. We’ve been based here
since 2014 – we like the neighbourhood
with its shops, restaurants and bars.
I would say that the studio is a bit
eclectic. We have a couple of furniture
design classics such as Alvar Aalto’s stool
and Jasper Morrison’s Low Pad. But we
also have interior pieces from young
Swedish designers and our lamps are
custom-made by three art schoolstudents. These work well with our own
products: we’ve designed our own desks,
coffee table and sideboards, for example.
For 20 years now I’ve been on the
look-out for cheap vintage Alvar Aalto
furniture, especially his lovely book
shelves. Today they’re expensive, but just
10 years ago you could find his birch
furniture quite cheap in Sweden because
people said they were impossible to
furnish their homes with. So in all my
studio spaces (four different studios over
the past 15 years) the Aalto book shelves
has always been with me (1). I love them,
but they’re insanely maddening to installbecause of the poor concrete walls. Twice
now, a shelf with books has collapsed and
destroyed everything underneath them!
Another Finnish designer whose
nature-inspired glassware is quite cheap
to collect is Tapio Wirkkala. Some years
ago I found this lovely decanter of his
from the early 60s. I used to serve water
in it during client meetings, but when
I realised how rare it was I decided to use
it more carefully. Wirkkala’s work is
fantastic, and his book Eye, Hand and
Thought always blows me away. His
decanter can be seen in one of our case
images for a kitchen that we designed (2).fixtures and fittings
Perniclas Bedow talks classic furniture and collapsing book shelves at his studio Bedow
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