Bruno Mathsson is most well known for his chairs and for his architectural designs such as his incredibly well insulated and beautiful glass houses, but he made other fine home furnishings (inredning) including computer desks, daybeds and tables. One of the most versatile and well known is the Mathsson Fällbord table, a design that is elegant and beautiful but extremely practical as well.

For five generations the Mathsson family had earned a living working with wood, so it comes as no surprise that a young Mathson would follow in his family's footsteps. As a young boy most of his chores were centered in the furniture and woodworking shop of his family. He grew up around tools, wood and the techniques of furniture building and woodworking.

Mathsson talked with experts and sent away for books in order to learn the technical and engineering skills that were missing in his small town of Varnamo. By doing so he not only mastered the skills he needed, he also formed a network of mentors to assisted him later on. He earned awards for furniture (möbler) design and these partially helped support his formal education.

While he produced many different furniture types, comfort and beauty were common themes for each type. What's more, he designed his pieces with innovation in mind; he recognized that people value flexibility in furniture arrangement . The modular style of his pieces enhanced their popularity due to the ease in which the pieces could be used to create unique spaces and moods.

You can use a Mathsson Fällbord table in so many different ways. While "fällbord" only translates to "folding table" in the language of Sweden, this piece offers more than the name implies. It was initially made in the year 1935, and the major components of its base were crafted from birchwood. The surface of the table was laminated in white after also having been crafted from birchwood. Other versions were manufactured from lumber such as oak, beechwood, cherry, ash, etc.

When mathsson table folds into tiny 23 cm bundle it completely collapsed and expanded into a table of 280 cm long when it is fully extended. It can be served as a writing table in a coffee nook or expanded into a banquet table with nearly equal size in between as possible. It ranges of 9 inches a bit over to about 110 1/4 inches, even for not accustomed metric measurements.

It would seem that the Mathsson Fällbord table was inspired by the collapsible tables one sees in rural houses in Sweden, permitting flexible usage where there is not much room. However, the elegant simplicity of Mathsson's renderings and craftsmanship turned their style into one uniquely his own. While he changed in the 1960's and used metals and up-to-date man-made materials from that point, it is generally felt that his high point was reached with the creation of those furnishings (möbler), such as the Fällbord, which he crafted in wood.

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