Extract
The decades immediately after World War II were a period of enormous growth in the Swedish economy. Between 1950 and 1975, Swedish consumers doubled their purchasing power. Bigger incomes, and the attendant higher levels of consumption, offered new opportunities for people to fashion their lives and their homes with all that the consumer society made available. At the same time, attitudes towards production and consumption underwent a change. Home furnishing became much more affordable and the right of consumers to self-fulfilment often contrasted with craft aspects and exclusivity.
This background is important in understanding the HI-group, which was an association of interior designers and craftspeople in Sweden. The history of the association has now been examined by Johan Örn in his book The HI-group and the Return to Craft: Swedish Furniture and Interiors 1960–1966. Hitherto, reference books and histories of interior design have paid only the briefest attention to the subject, and a detailed study has been lacking. The HI-group has been a forgotten, or at least marginalized, aspect of Swedish design history.
