A Scandinavian café chair makes an entrance

Following extensive remodelling, Nationalmuseum in Stockholm is once again one of Europe’s most modern museums. For the new interior, TAF Studio has designed Chapeau, a Scandinavian café chair offering great comfort and a small size – something that will solve problems in small spaces when people suddenly leave or join your company.

Gabriella Gustafson and Mattias Ståhlbom, who run the architect and design office TAF Studio, have been part of the group that created the new restaurant interior for Nationalmuseum. For the café section, TAF Studio designed Chapeau, a chair with a distinct expression, made out of Swedish wood.

“Chapeau is a modern and local take on the classic coffee-house chair. It has small proportions and a nice flexibility in the backrest, which is an unusual feature for a wooden chair,” says Gabriella Gustafson.

The comfortable backrest is a result of the very first collaboration between TAF Studio and Offecct.

“Working with Offecct has been great. They have a very strong product development department, which was necessary since we really pushed the ability of the machines to achieve the expression and function we wanted for the chair,” adds Mattias Ståhlbom.

Chapeau, which gets its name from the silhouette that emerges in the backrest, is a small, light chair that looks just as natural under the arched ceiling in Nationalmuseum’s Neo-Renaissance building as it does in the narrow, cosy spaces of bars, offices and apartments. Chapeau will also be produced with an upholstered seat and a dressed backrest as an option, and it is a wooden chair that’s an example of Offecct’s long-term commitment to development in biodegradable materials – an important ingredient in the Offecct Lifecircle philosophy.

“We are very happy with the result. TAF has designed a chair that’s unusually small for its typology, which gives it a special appearance and also makes it extremely useful when people suddenly join or leave a company,” says Anders Englund, Design Manager at Offecct.

Offecct has carried out three projects that have their origin in the renovation of Nationalmuseum. In 2017, a pattern created for a new facade by architects Gert Wingårdh and Erik Wikerstål was developed into Soundwave© Wicker. The Font sofa system by Matti Klenell, developed for the museum’s new restaurant interior, will be launched during 2019. Offecct has also produced several pieces of bespoke furniture in collaboration with designer Matti Klenell.

The Chapeau chair by TAF Studio will be a part of Offecct project collection. For questions, please contact Offecct.

Bio TAF Studio

Gabriella Gustafson (b. 1974) and Mattias Ståhlbom (b. 1971) founded the architecture and design office TAF Studio in Stockholm in 2002, after graduating in interior architecture and furniture design at Konstfack – University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. The design language of TAF Studio is characterised by its ability to extract the extraordinary from ordinary materials and expressions, and this has led to iconic products for several well-known companies. TAF Studio has designed many celebrated interiors and exhibitions, and in 2017 the company received the Bruno Mathsson Award. The studio’s works are in the collections of both Nationalmuseum in Stockholm and the Danish Museum of Art & Design in Copenhagen.