Southern Swedish beech is the focus of the exhibition PRO BOK at the Form/Design Center in Malmö (15 November – 12 Jan 2025).
Gärsnäs has been chosen as one of the participants for its Ronja project, where timber from local forests only is used for the Ronja chair, designed by David Ericsson. It is the first step in Gärsnäs’s aim to use local timber for other kinds of furniture in production.
The exhibition aims to showcase beech’s potential through innovative design and construction, provide a review of earlier projects and profile the advantages of working with locally produced timber.
Other participants include designers VI PÅ ÖN, architects/designers Förstberg Ling and artist Carl Emrik Fredrik Danielsson. This exhibition is organised by production platform S-P-O-K Skåne, Skogens Värden, Lund University School of Industrial Design and Gärsnäs. Also participating is Stiftelsen Skånska Landskap with practical knowledge about beech forest management to ensure sustainable forestry with close-to-nature methods and extra consideration for biological value. The foundation is a major land owner and supplies southern Swedish beech, even for the Ronja chair.
The PRO BOK concept takes us back about 60 years to the PRO BOK foundation that, in 1963, conducted a furniture design contest to raise awareness of the southern Swedish beech, which back then was endangered by plantations of faster growing softwoods. The contest successfully steered the industry’s interest towards southern Swedish beech. So too, legislation was gradually introduced about replanting felled beech forests.