Jonas Bohlin

For his graduation project at Konstfack, Bohlin designed a chair using reinforced concrete and corrugated steel tubes. The piece, shown at the school's 1981 exhibition, caused immediate controversy. Swedish design culture in the early 1980s still operated largely within a functionalist framework, where materials were chosen for ergonomic fitness and honest utility. A chair made of concrete, heavy, cold, aggressively industrial, read as a provocation. Sven Lundh, founder of the furniture manufacturer Kallemo, saw the chair at the 1982 Stockholm furniture fair and put it into production. Only around 100 examples were made in the original limited edition, and the chair is now a collector's object held in major museum collections, including the Norwegian National Museum in Oslo.

The Concrete chair defined Bohlin as a key figure in Swedish postmodernism. In 1983 he received the Utmarkt Svensk Form award for the piece. The same year he founded his own studio in Stockholm. Two years later, in 1985, he was part of the group that launched Stockholm Mobile, an art and design gallery that served as a hub for experimental practice in the capital.

Through the 1980s and 1990s Bohlin continued to develop furniture with Kallemo, producing the Concave lounge chair (1983), the Point chair (1985), the Zinken magazine rack (1984), the Triptyk table (1988), and the Sto chair (1990). In 1997 he created the Liv collection, furniture, lighting, textiles, and glass, partly inspired by a months-long journey he made with 53 companions rowing from Stockholm to Paris. From the mid-1990s onward he began a sustained collaboration with Orsjo Belysning. His first lamp for Orsjo, Kvist, was presented in 1999 and officially launched in 2001.

Bohlin taught at Beckmans College of Design from 1988 and was a founder of its Design BA program in 1992. From 2004 to 2009 he served as professor of furniture design at Konstfack.

On the Nordic auction market, Bohlin's work appears most frequently at Bukowskis (54 items) and Stockholms Auktionsverk (36 items). Lighting accounts for the majority of lots, followed by furniture and tables, reflecting the deep market penetration of his Orsjo lamp designs and continued collector interest in Kallemo pieces. The Halo ceiling lamp for Orsjo has reached 21,500 SEK, the Zink floor lamp 12,000 SEK, and the Concrete table also 12,000 SEK.