Pira G2 shelf – String Furniture

A MODERN INTERPRETATION OF A 1950S DESIGN CLASSIC

The original Pira Shelf designed in 1954 was as contradictory as the man who designed it.
Olle Pira (1927-2018) was a traditional master cabinetmaker who worked with cherry, maple, and mature oak using time-honored skills. Yet he earned a place at the renowned Konstfack School of Art, Craft and Design, home of avant-garde concepts, and became the first Swede to win a gold medal
at the Milan Triennial in 1952.

VINTAGE GENIUS, BUT IN A NEW STATE OF MIND

It's the 2020s, technology and materials have changed but so have people's habits and needs. Architect Anna von Schewen and industrial designer Björn Dahlström have taken on the challenge of bringing the Pira shelf back to life. In every sense of the word.

ELEGANTLY DELICATE, YET BRUTALLY ROBUST

The Pira G2 is a metal work of art that is destined to become a centerpiece wherever it is placed. Each shelf can support up to 50 kg, thanks to its sheet steel construction with integrated edge. That's 350 kg per section. Enough for life's treasures. Or life's necessities. Or both.

LIKE A TOWER CRANE, BUT PRECISE LIKE A SWISS WATCH

Pira G2 is the sum of many parts. An interlocking series of joints, posts, flats and triangles, each no longer than a meter, but expandable to reach most ceilings from any floor. With machining tolerances of up to 0.02 mm, but all as robust as the machines that cut them.

MODULAR, YET JOINTLESS

Modular, yet assembled it seems to have been built as one. As a jointless centrepiece with no joints, beginnings and ends.

UPHOLDING, YET MELLOWING

Pira G2’s metalwork reassures. Yet its walnut and white oak bookends and cabinets pacify. A technical feat but also a beautiful one. Two schools in one space. The welcoming and the working.

CONTRADICTORY, YET CONSUMMATE

Thanks to the efforts of some of Sweden’s most bright and wayward minds, it’s a masterpiece, complex and sophisticated. But capable of creating calm and wellbeing wherever it lives.