Designer Furniture

1. Cool Designer Furniture: Peter Opsvik was born in 1939 on the western coast of Norway. His college training was on applied art at the Bergen College between the years 1959 and 1963. He also studied at the State College of Applied Art between 1963 and 1964, and afterwards worked as a designer in the industrial sector at the Tandberg Radio Factory in Oslo. In the year 1967 Peter Opsvik won a scholarship which enabled him to spend time at the design studio in London. In his years as a working designer, Opsvik’s major objective was to look into the shape of people and their relationship with the spatial expanse around them. He therefore did not see that his role was solely of a designer but also as a problem solver for the contemporary man. His central focus was on the way human beings sit. To extend his logic and assertion about sitting by humans, Opsvik worked deeply on the history and roots of the human form. He also coupled this with an explanation that dug into the fact that man is a consistent nomad at whatever place. Opsvik had a conceptual common phrase that stated that ‘the sitting position is the best one. Peter Opsvik is also the owner of a consultancy company at the Centre of Oslo in which he works and administrates with his seven business partners. This office contains a large room where his great works lie as well as his projects. His combination of design, inspiration and music gives him a unique life of his own. It provides him with a significant environment necessary for creative design and ideal refinement. Peter Opsvik, the architect of the Tripp Trapp chair, is one of the head Designer Furniture in Norway. His main objective was to come up with chair designs that were flexible to movement from one person to another. He came up with what is commonly called the ‘rethinking solution.’ This is a thinking mode or process that serves as an explanation for the various seating solutions. The process would be made possible and understandable to the user and reader by following his texts and examples, hence explaining his philosophy. This is what was called the Opsvik design philosophy. The philosophy of Opsvik Emanated from the fact that whether it is within the industrialised world or the contemporary society, furniture and chairs have become significant equipment in the work place, institutions and even in

2. people’s homes. He therefore came up with bodily designed shapes for chairs that would make sitting comfortable. The chairs were also meant to initiate flexibility and movement of the body and the chair from one place to another. Opsvik fancies the externalities of furniture designs. Again, he likes to create chairs in which emotional response is intermingled with visual forms. It therefore becomes evincible that he designs chairs not for abstract reasons but for practical purposes. Consequentially, Opsvik believes that achieving unison between these two extremities provides a formidable comfort. Design coupled with inspiration defined Peter Opsvik’s career.