It started with a chair
“When I was a kid growing up in the early eighties, I used to run around in my dad Pierre’s furniture factory. It must have been there that my love of furniture began,” says Johan Berhin. He went on to educate himself as an industrial designer, eventually creating the design enterprise Berhin Studios – a business focusing on furniture and industrial design.
Johan continues: “For the longest time, I had a dream about a naturally curving chair, made of a single piece of wood. One day that dream took shape. I cut a template out of a piece of wood and my One C chair was born! “C” stands for Chair. “One C” for a chair in one piece. I was happy as a child and couldn’t resist the urge to have my chair manufactured.”
Johan established contact with Åberg och Söner, a third-generation (now fourth!) family business specializing in producing molded-wood pieces. They liked what they saw in each other, and Åberg’s supplied the necessary tools for production. The first series of chairs was made and French furniture retailer Sentou placed a large order. Johan decided it was time to manufacture his own furniture collection under his own brand, Berhin Studios.
New ideas sprang from the One C profile and several other products were made in the same style to create a full C range:
- One C (2005), the original chair in one piece (no longer in production)
- Half C (2006), one half of One C. It can be hung on a wall when not in use (no longer in production)
- Stack C (2007), a stackable version of One C (no longer in production)
- Multi C (2008), an accordion-like extension of One C (no longer in production)
- Nova C (2010), the next evolution of Multi C and the first in the range for indoor public spaces
- Nova C Back (2012), a collaborative project with architect Fanny Stenberg, designed to meet high maintenance and cleaning demands together with Stockholm Central Station.
As chair volumes rose in 2007, Johan began to ponder how he could express his commitment to environmental issues in the field of furniture design and production.
This was the beginning of the Berhin Studios environmental concept. “Once volumes were up, I felt there was only one way forward I personally could stand behind – the furniture had to be manufactured in a green and sustainable way,” says Johan. “And beyond that, I knew there had to be sustainable furniture concepts out there where the sustainability actually improves the design and shapes a new green design style.” Johan founded the Green Furniture Award global design competition to find these green concepts and put them under the spotlight. The Award was a success the very first year at the Stockholm Furniture Fair in February 2009. Johan decided to call the furniture series Green Furniture Sweden, now internationalized as Green Furniture Concept.
