Everyday, in every scope we’re told about a calm and efficient North Europe, with a quality lifestyle, a quality social system, quality roads. These are all collective virtues, that we can’t easily import in Italy. But, as wisemen say, the revolution must start from ourselves. So, why not try to learn at least the most intimate dimension of the Scandinavian virtues: home?
1. The living philosophy
In the public life, as well as in the private one, the main principle leading the Scandinavian philosophy is efficience and resolution with comfort, versatility and accessibility. No more weighty tufted curtains, Venetian textiles and museum-houses. No more obsession to accumulate, dusty showcases and plaster moldings. Make room for pure geometries, balanced decompositions.
Scandinavians love reading and sitting on a comfortable sofa.
2. The natural factor
The cold Scandinavian climate leads to the chase of elements like wood, to hold the warmth and respond to the wintry temperatures, glass to raise the sunlight and to maximize it with bright colors and desaturated tonalities, as well as natural textures to keep their capacities.
A wood wall unit, for example, can be an adaptable solution.
3. Never forget to play
This is an iconic quote from Alvar Aalto, a great Finnish Architect that perfectly enunciates the Scandinavian culture of composing and this helps us to mind of spaces to be lived in. So, getting rid of strict rules sometimes would be a good practise to play with form, contrast and volume. This would help to make the space less rigorous, inviting to a relaxed experience of home, our most authentic playground.
Frames are good helpers for creativity.
4. Contrasts and Harmonies
Even if bright and delicate color blocks are good to maximize the light, abusing, on the other hand, would harm the perceptions of eye, that needs to anchor to an outline, to a direction or a point not to be dazzled. Small contrasts can help us, like a piece of forniture or an object , that doesn’t alterate the breathing space, but gives it further personality. Black, primary and natural colors fulfill this task.
5. Small domestic luxury
The general cheapness of the Scandinavian style, the natural materials, the right amount of decoring elements, allows us to indulge in some out-of-budget for design furniture. Scandinavians are good designers and they put us at ease with a wide variety of choses, as tea trolleys, armchairs, tables, lamps and table vases. They can be great protagonists in a bright living.
6. Messieurs les enfants
The Scandinavian lifestyle invests a lot on childhood and education, working carefully to build children’s independence through the direct experience, freedom of play and creativity. So, make way to simple toys, not too realistic, to stimulate original ideas that would allow children to build their own imagination. An useful exercise for parents too, that are just less light-hearted children.
7. Authenticity
Our home describes who we are, our troubles and our successes. There’s no need to fill it with undue expectations, it’s better to enjoy what we can afford. If everyone showed what he or she is, would free from performance anxieties and would open to a greatest empathy for others. We’d better stop claiming the dream house, in one style or another, if it doesn’t represent us. The dream home is the one’s able to contain it.
And, maybe, it’s the one’s able to create them by time, adding a memory on a Scandinavian shelf.
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