The 2005 World Exposition in Japan

"Breaking the norms of sitting".
Peter Opsvik was presented with his film "Breaking the norms of sitting" at the Nordic Pavilion in the 2005 World Exposition in Japan.

Peter Opsvik is a Norwegian industrial designer born in 1939. He trained at the Bergen College of Applied Art and the Norwegian State College of Applied Art in Oslo. Opsvik has worked as a freelance industrial designer since 1970, and currently has his own design studio in Oslo, with five colleagues.

His most known piece, the child chair Tripp Trapp (1972) is still manufactured by the company Stokke and has sold in millions of copies. His furniture can be found under the brand names: HAG (Capisco, H04, H05, Conventio Wing), VARIER (Balans, Penguin), STOKKE (Tripp Trapp) NATURELLEMENT (Reflex, Viola) and CYLINDRA (Cylindra objects). Peter Opsvik is also a painter and jazz musician.

Peter Opsvik's philosophy
For millions of years on Earth the human race has led physically active lives. Recently however our lifestyle has changed and become much more sedate. We sit our way through life and the supported posture has been much focused. When the various authorities in ergonomics back in the nineteen seventies were all promoting their one and only correct sitting postures, Peter Opsviks comment was that all of them were right. All of the recommended sitting postures were good, for a while! He saw it as his task to design chairs that allowed as many different sitting postures as possible and to make it easy to move and change frequently between them.

Read more about Peter Opsvik's philosophy in his book Rethinking Sitting published by:

Gaidaros, 2008, www.Gaidaros.no
In English ISBN 978-82-8077-119-3
In German ISBN 978-82-8077-127-8

WWNorton, 2009, www.wwnorton.com
In English ISBN 978-0-393-73288-7

www.opsvik.no

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Chairs
• industrial design
• Peter Opsvik
• ergonomic
• sitting
• seating
• furniture
• objects
• sculpture