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18 May 2025Ahead of the curve
Tucked away in Stockholm’s chic Östermalm district, Modernity is an Aladdin’s cave for anyone who has an eye for the elegance and simplicity of vintage Scandinavian design
S
tockholm isn’t exactly short on precision-cut elegance, but you’ll find its fullest expression in the stylish Östermalm district. Michelin stars cluster over the restaurants, sharply tailored locals stroll the boulevards and luxury goods line the echoing marbled halls of the art nouveau NK department store.
Tucked away in Stockholm’s chic Östermalm district, Modernity is an Aladdin’s cave for anyone who has an eye for the elegance and simplicity of vintage Scandinavian design
S tockholm isn’t exactly short on precision-cut elegance, but you’ll find its fullest expression in the stylish Östermalm district. Michelin stars cluster over the restaurants, sharply tailored locals stroll the boulevards and luxury goods line the echoing marbled halls of the art nouveau NK department store.
The neighbourhood also provides a suitably refined home for Modernity, a showroom that can reasonably claim to be Scandinavia’s leading source for vintage pieces from the Nordic design masters. For 20th-century furniture, lighting, jewellery and ceramics – all imbued with the shapely minimalism that defines the period – look no further.
Modernity regularly exhibits its pieces at seven of the highest-profile fine art fairs around the world, from New York’s The Salon Art + Design and London’s Masterpiece to Maastricht’s peerless TEFAF. It’s not bad going for a business that began almost by chance, after Scottish entrepreneur Andrew Duncanson fell in love with a Swede and made the fateful decision to settle here in 1996.
‘Design had always been a hobby, so it was a natural move to start something,’ he remembers. ‘I saw more vintage design here in two months than I had in five years in Scotland. I started submerging myself in old books and catalogues, learning everything I could about Nordic design.
'I saw there was the perfect opportunity to combine my hobby with my career. It was the best thing I’ve ever done. Modernity opened in 1998, and it worked from the moment I opened the doors. By the end of the first week I had a half-empty store.’
This won’t be surprising to anyone who’s ever found themselves transfixed by the clean, fluid lines of 20th-century Scandinavian design. Names like Finn Juhl, Arne Jacobsen, Hans Wegner and Greta Magnusson-Grossman have an influence that extends well beyond both their time period and their place of origin, and vintage Nordic design items now catch the eye everywhere from ski chalets in the Alps to country houses in California.
Duncanson has built a reputation for sourcing items made between the 1920s and 1960s
Duncanson’s own passion for design began as a boy. ‘It was a reaction to my family home,’ he remembers. ‘My mother was a hoarder – she bought indiscriminately and she never sold or threw anything out. When I was about 10, one of my friends invited me to his home. His front door opened and the light just flooded in. His parents had bought everything from the one shop in Glasgow that sold Scandinavian design. The home was amazing. It was so peaceful. It was like being able to breathe. That feeling has stayed with me.’
But not all pieces are created equal. Duncanson, today working alongside business partner Isaac Pineus, has built a weighty reputation for sourcing high-quality items, almost exclusively made between the 1920s and 1960s.
His Östermalm showroom holds an aesthetically powerful display of mid-century chairs, tables, rugs, lights and cabinets – with plenty more prime stock kept in a warehouse, a restored 19th-century stables, elsewhere in the Swedish capital.
‘I’d say 80% of my work time is spent on finding pieces,’ he says. ‘The selling of them happens quite naturally through the fairs that we do and the contacts that we have, but finding the really good pieces is the most difficult part of this business. I’m always on the hunt and always open. I don’t necessarily just buy the big names – I buy things I like. But of course, when it comes to a really important piece of Nordic design then your heart always beats a little bit faster.’
The birth of Sweden itself as a design powerhouse can be said to stem from the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, a World’s Fair held in Paris in 1925.
‘When we opened I could really look at the objects, now I hardly get the chance to see some of them before they’re gone.’
‘This was when the country had its breakthrough in terms of design,’ explains Duncanson. ‘The Swedish Pavilion was absolutely amazing, it won more awards than any country other than the host nation, so it went from nowhere to a major force in the design world. It was given an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which then travelled around America.’
The majority of the pieces in the Modernity showroom hail from either Sweden or Denmark, the two Nordic countries with the strongest 20th-century design legacies, with Finland’s eye for design artistry also represented. Many items don’t stay on display for long.
‘Some things disappear too quickly,’ he laughs. ‘I haven’t had the chance to live with them as much. As our client base grows it means I have less time to spend with the objects. When I opened I could really look at the objects, turn them upside-down, now I hardly get the chance to see some of them before they’re gone.’
There’s a growing demand for design pieces on both sides of the Atlantic, with Duncanson noticing a recent shift in the type of items that appeal to American collectors. ‘Ten years ago I would have said Americans preferred everything over-renovated – they wanted it to look new even though it was old,’ he says. ‘That’s changed. Now there are collectors in America who really like patina, they want it to look older, as though it’s had a life and now has a bit more soul.’
And what exactly is it that makes mid-century Nordic design so appealing? ‘For me, it’s the simplicity combined with the quality of workmanship. Scandinavians have always used excellent materials,’ he says. ‘There’s always a restrained element to the pieces. They’re pared down and kept to the essence of their design. They’re easy to use.’
‘I don’t like the word “trends”,’ he continues, reflecting on the kind of clients that are attracted to Nordic pieces. ‘So long as something’s good then I don’t think trends apply, but I do think Scandinavian design works very well with contemporary interiors, and with both contemporary and modern art.’
The word art could equally be applied to the elegant pieces that grace Modernity’s showroom. There’s an understated quality to Scandinavian design that sets it apart from that of almost any other world region. Just don’t expect the best pieces to be in stock for long.
Modernity, Sibyllegatan 6, Stockholmmodernity.se
Words: DH
Three iconic vintage Nordic design items
Arne Jacobsen: Egg Chair
‘It’s an extremely important piece of design, because of the shape of it and because of the use of the materials, the way it’s upholstered. Nothing had ever looked like that. We actually sold an early example to MoMA – the one that they have in their collection is from us.’
Peder Moos: Tables
‘The quality of his work is second to none. He was a bit crazy. You might order a piece and when it was finally finished it would look very different to the original plans. He’d say: “That’s because the wood spoke to me.” One of his pieces sold for over £600,000.’
‘You can’t talk about lighting design without mentioning Poul Henningsen. He was considered to be the world’s first lighting architect, he worked on mathematical formulae to come up with a method of using different levels of shade to protect the eye from the naked light.’