Bruno Mathsson was a Swedish furniture designer and architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

 with ideas colored by functionalism/modernism

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

, as well as old Swedish crafts tradition. Being the son of a carpenter in the town of Värnamo

Värnamo

Värnamo is a locality and the seat of Värnamo Municipality, Jönköping County, Sweden, with 18,696 inhabitants in 2010.-History:Värnamo traces its history back to a village in the medieval age; the first written mention of it stems from the 13th century...

 in the South of Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, it was fairly obvious what work the young Bruno would choose. After a short time of education in school, he started to work in his father's gallery. He soon found a great interest in furniture and especially chairs—-their function and design. Eventually he developed a special building technique for wooden chairs where the components were bent and glued under the action of hot water.

He also designed houses in Sweden, Portugal and in the United States with frameworks of glass and steel.