Few opportunities bridge architecture, craft, and industry quite like the Bruno Mathsson Design Residency. Now entering its third edition, the residency invites one international designer to live and work for a month inside a pioneering house designed by the late Swedish modernist Bruno Mathsson (1907–88)—a glass-and-wood structure that remains one of Scandinavia’s most radical domestic experiments.
Hosted by Vandalorum Museum of Art & Design in Värnamo, Sweden, and supported by Region Jönköping County, the residency provides rare access to Småland’s legendary manufacturing ecosystem—a landscape where furniture factories, material innovators, and design ateliers coexist in the same dense forests that shaped Mathsson’s vision.
A Modernist’s House as a Living Laboratory
The Bruno Mathsson Design Residency unfolds within a house Mathsson designed in 1955 for Sven Lundh, the forward-thinking founder of Källemo and initiator of Vandalorum. The structure, with its open plan, glass walls, and rhythmic wooden beams, anticipated environmental design decades before “sustainability” became a buzzword.
To inhabit this space is to experience Mathsson’s ideas in their purest form: light as structure, transparency as philosophy, and the body as a measure of design. The chosen resident will have the house entirely to themselves for a month—a chance to test ideas at the same scale and intensity that shaped the Nordic modern movement.
Bridging Designers and Industry
Beyond its architectural allure, the residency offers a gateway into the Jönköping region’s manufacturing powerhouse—a network of furniture makers, metalworkers, and material producers who continue to define Swedish design’s global reputation for precision and craft.
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Residents are encouraged to explore collaborations and site visits tailored to their own practice, guided by Vandalorum’s curatorial team. The program culminates in a public lecture at the museum, allowing the designer to share insights with both the professional community and local audiences.
A Jury of Global Voices
The 2026 resident will be selected by a jury blending museum leadership, designers, and cultural policymakers, including:
Dr. Mateo Kries, Director, Vitra Design Museum
Jenny Nordberg, designer, Malmö
Magnus Jonsson, Culture Director, Region Jönköping County
Lennart Alves Gernes, Art & Design Developer, Region Jönköping County
Elna Svenle, Museum Director, Vandalorum
Their collective expertise ensures the residency remains a platform for both experimentation and professional growth. Previous recipients include included Maria Bruun (2025), and Stephen Burks (2024)—two designers known for rethinking the intersections of craft, community, and identity.
Design in Dialogue with Place
Located midway between Stockholm and Copenhagen, Värnamo is surrounded by forests and lakes that continue to inform Sweden’s design language. Since opening in 2011, Vandalorum—designed according to an original Renzo Piano concept and framed by a garden by Piet Oudolf—has become one of Scandinavia’s most ambitious cultural destinations. It positions design not as an isolated practice, but as part of a living, regional ecosystem.
As Vandalorum’s director Elna Svenle has noted, the residency reflects “a belief that meaningful design emerges from deep relationships—with materials, with communities, and with history.”
How to Apply
Applications are open to all international designers based outside Sweden who have completed their studies and are working professionally in the field.
Deadline: October 30, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. CET
Residency dates: May 15–June 15, 2026
The program includes:
Round-trip travel to and from Värnamo
One-month stay in the Bruno Mathsson House (solo occupancy)
A stipend of 20,000 SEK to cover living and research expenses
Applications should be submitted as a single PDF to bildochform@rjl.se, containing:
A project outline (300–500 words) specifying why you want to take part of the residency and what you hope to achieve during the residence period
A CV
A portfolio (10–15 images)
The selected designer will be notified within eight weeks of the deadline.
For more details, visit www.vandalorum.se or contact lennart.alvesgernes@rjl.se.
Beyond Residency: A Continuing Legacy
For architects and designers, the Bruno Mathsson Design Residency is more than a month in Sweden—it’s a dialogue across time. It invites a new generation to inhabit a space conceived as both machine and muse, to confront how design’s modernist ideals might be reinterpreted in a post-industrial world.
In Mathsson’s transparent rooms, every reflection becomes a question: How does design evolve when its walls disappear? Application deadline: October 30, 2025, 11:59pm
