HI-gruppen och hantverkets återkomst, Johan Örn (book)

HI-gruppen was an association of sixteen master craftsmen and interior architects who sought to renew Swedish furniture design in the first half of the 1960s. Johan Örn's insightful book is the first detailed study of the group, highlighting its importance and its place in interior design, not just in craft.

Provocation and slogans were hardly the members' style. Rather, they were marked by a certain modesty and an almost naive belief that quality speaks for itself. It was no revolt against the prevailing style, and the members represented no common line in form. What the group championed was collaboration between craftsmen (hantverkare) and interior architects (inredningsarkitekter), hence the name HI.

The book tells of a unique venture in Swedish furniture history, with rich illustrations, a complete catalogue section and design history that is also cultural history.

Johan Örn is an architectural historian and curator at ArkDes, the Swedish centre for architecture and design. His dissertation I rummets kraftfält dealt with architecture and public interiors in Sweden 1935-1975 (2007), and he also wrote Åke Axelsson, inredningsarkitekt (2010). The book is in Swedish.