Part of the furniture

Photo: John Calton

If you think about the default understanding of chair in academic circles, you’d be given some funny looks were you to propose that your undergraduates all be given one. But this was the deal struck between John Calton, lecturer in English, and the interior architect Kaarle Holmberg, author of LEPO. 60 Years in Furniture.

Kaarle Holmberg Photo: John Calton

Kaarle Holmberg

A project to translate this interesting generic hybrid, a 130-page illustrated history of one of Finland’s design successes,  the Lepo furniture manufacturer, was completed as part of a course in the Department of Modern Languages. In the space of three weeks students got a very clear idea about how, to paraphrase the Swiss poet and philosopher Henri Amiel, almost everything apparently comes from almost nothing. When a translation job is tied to a real timetable, deadlines can be reconstituted as lifelines: on the same day we raised a glass in honour of the English-language version of the book, the company received a substantial order from China, and with the international furniture fair in Stockholm coming up in early February, the translation is expected to add some depth to the surface glamour of Finnish design. Holmberg points out the need for future designers to know something about the human stories behind the industrial and economic facts.

But what was in it for the undergraduates? Well they were all invited to leave the book launch with a chair of their choice. A prototype, of course. Chairs!

John Calton