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"Eureka, it´s gold!"
1607
The words echoed between the walls in Strindberg’s house. Two thousand years earlier the same words echoed between the houses in the town of Syracusa when the Greek mathematician Archimedes announced that he had found a way to differentiate gold from other metals.
August Strindberg may have been a remarkable Swedish author and art ist, but he never became a successful alchemist. On one spring day in Paris in1887 he thought he had made gold, but though his combination of iron and sulphur may have looked the part, it turned out to be pure… yellow mica.
As Strindberg found out and Archimedes proved, ‘all that glisters is not gold’. This was true of Strindberg’s discovery but not true of brass. For in Sweden’s miserable economy of the seventeenth century, brass was to become almost as valuable to the country as its distant cousin, gold. In 1607 Skultuna Messingsbruk (Brass Works) was founded by King Karl IX, the former King Gustav Vasa´s youngest son. Karl IX realised that items made of brass were considered valuable and were much coverted throughout Europe.
Thanks to the profits generated by the new brass production Karl IX would pay off his father’s and older brother’s earlier war debts. The brass production in Skultuna was the starting point to a long and solid tradition of craftsmanship in forging and shaping brass. The already strong traditions in smithery were allowed to develop and flourish and the blacksmiths’ position amongst his contemporary Swedish craftsmen was reinforced.
1967 The forgotten room
The bathroom of the 1960´s reflected the austere times of the decades before. Fashion had yet to dictate that a bathroom should be any more than basic and simple. As a result bathrooms were stark and dull, easy to care for but with little attention paid to aesthetics and style – a forgotten room.
In 1967 Smedbo was founded. The new company was formed on the traditional principles of craftsmanship of the highest level. Beautifully forged items were produced and in that first year Smedbo unveiled the first bathroom accessories (Herrgård), in a period when people were beginning to realize that a bathroom could be stylish and modern.
Smedbo’s new line of decorative hardware in solid brass featuring fine detail captured the market’s imagination and helped to ensure that the bathroom would no longer be the most neglected room in the home. With this new of range classic Scandinavian design values, the tradition of craftsmanship and the beauty of brass united. The new bathroom range from Smedbo enjoyed great success amongst the Swedish house holds. The ‘forgotten’ room would be forgotten no more.
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