The acclaimed Bukowskis auction house in Stockholm recently hosted an exhibition by Note Design Studio entitled Adjectives, featuring designs from Vibia, Kvadrat, and Mutina. The evocative installation was a physical canvas for exploring how light, material, and objects interact and elicit distinctive atmospheres and emotions.
We spoke to Malin Sveholm, installation manager at Bukowskis, as well as Sylvia Neiglick, a Stockholm architect at Kjellander Sjöberg, to learn more about the art of creating atmosphere, from developing a mood board to the finished product.
For Sveholm, the focus is always finding the best way to highlight the art and the objects themselves. Her mood boards include a range of inspirations, including design magazines and newspapers as well as historically contextual references and images.
The goal in creating atmosphere for the Adjectives exhibit was to honor the inextricable interactions between each different element.
Putting them all together, she said, was like “creating a universe that comes together in one. We really didn’t know exactly what would happen.” One room featuring Vibia’s Slim fixture in a blue finish exudes an atmosphere that Sveholm describes in one word—“magic.”
Neiglick also aims for context when developing her mood boards and cultivating emotional resonance. She finds a contextual reference that she then carries through to the various elements included in the project. Layering in natural materials is another hallmark of her firm’s approach.
An important factor in establishing atmosphere, Neiglick said, is creative lighting. It should reveal contrasts in the material and achieve a daylight look whenever possible. In one of the Adjectives’ rooms was the North pendant interspersed with bronze sculptures. The grey, green, and bronze hues “have a lot of daylight qualities,” she said, “and you can really see the different materials here.” Her adjectives for the room? “Focused and calm.”
