Elias Svedberg was a student of Carl Malmsten from 1931-32 and founded three years later his own studio which he ran until 1944. Svedberg participated in the World’s fair in Paris in 1937 and in New York 1939.
In 1943, Svedberg won a competition to create furniture for mass production and Swedish homes, set up by Svenska Möbelfabrikerna and Svensk Form, with the knock-down chair Ta i trä (eng. Knock on wood). The chair was spotted by Ragnar Sachs at the Swedish department store NK, and the following year the chair had initiated the development of the already existing Triva collection (that Svedberg designed in 1940) at NK, to Triva-bygg. The new collection was presented at the exhibition Vi Bo i Friluftsstaden in Malmö the same year.
Triva-bygg was the first Swedish furniture to be delivered to the customers in flat packages (long before IKEA) and was later sold at NK-Bo. Of the chairs from the first Triva-bygg collection, the Safari chair, is the most well-known and which became a best-seller for NK. Svedberg later developed the Triva concept together with Lena Larsson and Erik Wørts.
Designers such as Carl-Axel Acking, Kerstin Hörlin-Holmquist and Bengt Ruda later joined Triva-bygg which ran until 1966. In 1952, Svedberg became the director of NK-Bo, where he stayed until 1961, creating furniture and interiors both in Sweden and abroad. During the 1950’s Svedberg also worked with the American manufacturers Knoll and Herman Miller.
Together with architect Lena Larsson, Svedberg wrote the book Heminredning (eng. Interior design) in 1947. Svedberg was for a long time active in Svenska Slöjdföringen (today Svensk Form), both as an exhibition’s designer, a member of the board and later as vice president.
Elias Svedberg died in 1987 at the age of 74. Svedberg is represented at a.o. the Swedish National Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Furniture Studies in Stockholm.
