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Friday Five with Morten Georgsen

Morten Georgsen runs Futhark Design based in Valencia, Spain and has been designing for BoConcept for almost 20 years. He has a knack for designing multifunctional furniture inspired by the customer’s desire for beautiful and functional things. He is inspired by what he calls the “big city life” and draws much of his inspiration from mega trends –- the trends that are changing our lifestyles. To Morten, the aim of furniture design is not to change peoples’ lifestyle but to complement it.

Here are some of Morten’s favorite things.

1. The Ball
Sometimes we forget the beauty of the simplest and most functional things. A ball. Round like the globe, the sun, planets and moons. The core of nature and shapes. Then taken on to be the magic for most people around the world. Baseball, basketball, cricket, tennis, water-polo, and not at least the biggest of them all soccer. Children’s best toy. Two stones and you have a goal. The game is on. The beauty of children’s play and of one of the best inventions ever made: THE BALL.

2. Food by Santi Santamaria
Food has become industrial design… or molecular gastronomic inventions as presented en El Bulli by Sr. Ferran Adriá… for years nominated best restaurant in the world. However another top chef and Catalan Sr. Santi Santamaria did not believe in this “technical” approach. He created his remarkable food on the traditional Spanish ways of cooking. Personally I tend to agree with him. Unfortunately he passed away in Feb this year — way too young — just before I was to visit his new restaurant at Sands in Singapore. However take a look at his sexy tapas. I am sure you’ll get hungry. First class food design built on tradition.

3. SAAB 9-3 Aero convertible
I am not sure why but I was always so fond of SAABs. The odd gearshifts in the old ones, the fact that you can only get the key out when in reverse and that it originates from an aviation manufacturer, the classic 900 convertible driven by Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets, but mostly I guess because a SAAB customer is totally indefinable. He/she can be rich, poor, intellectual, farmer, designer, teacher, young, old… You never know. But they just know. SAAB appeals to them. Living in sunny Valencia a SAAB 9,3 Aero convertible… with blue top is the only choice for me. And if you can love a materialistic thing… I love my SAAB.

4. Bang & Olufsen turntable
I started my serious record collection — by serious I mean LPs opposed to Singles ;-) — in the mid-to-end 70s. Rumours by Fleetwood Mac and A Night at the Opera by Queen were turning happily on the JVC with radial arm. My thoughts were taken astray with the picture I had seen of the absolutely phenomenal functional design and style of the Bang & Olufsen turntable with tangential arm. Touching the record groove in a straight line just seemed so logically correct and intelligent. Not long after I was to work at Bang & Olufsen… and with cartridges, turntables and later CD-players. My dream has come true. I am still the proud owner of a Bang & Olufsen tangential turntable.

5. Volani wall system
As a designer I guess you have some areas you control better than other… I consider myself a master in wall-unit and table designs. To coordinate functionality and style in a minimalistic though exciting way is my game. For BoConcept I have designed the Volani wall-system. The individual units are well-proportioned and pleasant to the eye… this means that the customer can optimize the units in accordance with room size, needs for functions — TV, books, home-office etc, and appearance –- casual, chaotic, more formal –- and it will always look great… it’s very hard to jeopardize ;-).

Jaime Derringer, Founder + Executive Editor of Design Milk, is a Jersey girl living in SoCal. She dreams about funky, artistic jewelry + having enough free time to enjoy some of her favorite things—running, reading, making music, and drawing.