DesignerSwedish
Thomas Sandell
2 active items
Thomas Sandell was born in 1959 in Jakobstad, Finland, a coastal town with deep Swedish-speaking roots that shaped his bilingual cultural perspective. He moved to Sweden to study architecture at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, graduating in 1985, and went on to complete his master's degree there in 1990. His training under the discipline of Scandinavian architectural rationalism gave him a foundation that he would spend his career productively complicating - finding ways to inject warmth, wit, and material richness into an idiom that can easily become sterile.
In the early 1990s, Sandell began taking on furniture and interior commissions alongside architecture projects. One of his first lasting contributions came in 1994 when he and Jonas Bohlin were commissioned to design a storage furniture series for Forminord, a manufacturer near the Arctic Circle. The result, the Snow (Snö) chest of drawers, drew on the spare landscape of the Swedish north - solid wood, architectural proportions, and a distinctive handle that became something of a signature. Asplund took over production and distribution in 1997, and the series remains in production today as one of the clearest examples of 1990s Swedish furniture design.
In 1995, Sandell co-founded Sandellsandberg with Ulf Sandberg and Joakim Uebel, building it into a multidisciplinary studio of around 60 people working across architecture, interior design, and communication. The office brought Sandell to a wider range of commissions - the interiors of the Moderna Museet (Museum of Modern Art) and the Swedish Museum of Architecture in Stockholm, planning work at Gåshaga Brygga on Lidingö, and restaurant interiors including Rolf's Kök. He also served as president of SAR, the National Association of Swedish Architects.
In product design, Sandell worked with an unusually broad roster: IKEA, B&B Italia, Cappellini, Källemo, Gärsnäs, Swedese, Artek, iittala, Offecct, Marsotto, and Zero Lighting, among others. His pieces for IKEA included work on the PS 1999 collection - a sofa bed designed with Chris Martin - which brought well-made design to a mass audience. His lamp for Leucos, "Bottle," won Lamp of the Year in 2007. Across these varied clients, his work shares a preference for honest material use and forms that age well rather than announce themselves loudly.
Recognition has followed consistently. Sandell received the Utmärkt Svensk Form award (Excellent Swedish Design) eleven times - a number that reflects the breadth of his output across product categories. He also won the Red Dot Design Award in 2002 for the IKEA Vågö, and the Metropolitan Home Award in 2003.
On the Nordic auction market, Sandell's work appears primarily at Swedish houses, with Bukowskis Stockholm and Stockholms Auktionsverk accounting for much of the secondary market activity. The Snö dresser series, co-designed with Jonas Bohlin for Asplund, is by far his most traded piece - examples have sold between 6,500 and 12,500 EUR at auction, with strong demand from collectors of 1990s Scandinavian design. His Sandra table (benställning in birch) and lighting pieces appear at more accessible price points, generally in the low thousands of SEK. A total of 54 items tied to his name have been recorded in Nordic auction databases.