Petter Thörne: A magical experience of materials

Copenhagen-based designer explores his fascination with materiality in his contemporary product and furniture designs.

Swedish product and furniture designer Petter Thörne established his Copenhagen studio in 2014. His portfolio includes designs for brands such as Fendi, Danish design company Muuto and Yamaha. A common thread that runs through the artist’s work is his fascination with the experience of materiality. This interest is noticeable in the considered forms that define Thörne’s products.

The Keep table for Muuto, created in collaboration with designer Anders Johnsson, is one of Thörne’s products that plays with this notion of material quality. The layer upon layer of leftover wood slivers neatly stacked together forms an overlapping textured base that lends an interesting tangibility to the overall design.

The Wind Wall, Thörne’s latest project together with Danish architect Jens Vium Skaarup and American designer Joshua Morrison, is a further expansion of this idea of materiality. The public art work, soon to be erected in the Swedish city of Malmö, will be designed to interact with the wind. Its structure will frame thousands of free moving tiles that together form a wave-like movement when wind passes through. At night, artificial lights will illuminate the tiles in different colours and further animate the movement of the piece. This manipulation of material form is intended to create an attention-grabbing visual piece that will encourage passersby to interact and play with the moving tiles.