This Enchanting New Paris Destination Celebrates Scandinavian Craft
Veermakers, the furniture studio by Swedish designer Louise Liljencrantz, arrives in the Marais with an intimate showroom offering sculptural pieces informed by masterful cabinetmaking
Close to a decade ago, Louise Liljencrantz was building her interiors practice in Stockholm, completing high-end residences characterized by natural materials and a distinctly Scandinavian interpretation of midcentury modernism. Repeatedly, however, she struggled to source furniture that satisfied her vision, particularly finely crafted wooden pieces with substantial proportions and exceptional materials, so she began developing her own with longtime collaborators KFK Cabinet Makers. “In the beginning, many pieces were developed from a very instinctive and immediate need,” she recalls, “often something I couldn’t find.”
After several years, the two parties formalized their collaboration in 2017 with LKFK Edition, a tightly edited collection of hand-crafted furnishings that included sinuous timber cocktail tables defined by meticulously hand-gouged sides. Four years later, they expanded their ambitions by establishing Veermakers, conceived as a broader assortment of furniture and objects that could reach a larger audience while preserving the cabinetmaking expertise behind their earlier work. Today, Liljencrantz still conceives every piece, while master cabinetmakers and artisans craft the collection in the company’s close-knit workshops in Stockholm and Fiskars, Finland.
Nearly a decade after debuting that first collection, Veermakers has established its first permanent address outside Sweden with an appointment-only showroom in Paris. Conceived somewhere between a gallery and private residence, the well-appointed space in the heart of the Marais gathers the majority of the current Veermakers collection under one roof for the first time. Visitors approach through a cobbled courtyard almost swallowed by greenery, with palms and potted trees obscuring glimpses of the gallery’s cream-colored facade. Beyond a broad opening framed by ivory curtains, the interiors resemble an enviable Paris apartment. “Paris has a particular relationship with beauty,” says Liljencrantz, who wanted to evoke that spirit instead of simply transplanting a Scandinavian showroom to the city. “There is an elegance here, but also a freedom to combine different periods, materials, and cultural references.”
She does exactly that, with creamy walls and pale oak floors providing an ethereal backdrop for the darker, more soulful woods that have become a Veermakers signature in pieces like the mirror-gloss MAR Dining Table and the low-slung SSU Coffee Table carved from solid walnut. “I love the dialogue between the original Parisian architecture and the sculptural language of the furniture,” says Liljencrantz, who developed elements specifically for the interiors, including a custom kitchen that occupies a soaring skylighted room lined with monumental cabinetry, a thick timber counter, and a backsplash of mottled earth-toned tiles. “The space allows you to experience the collection as a complete universe and see how the pieces relate to one another.”
Throughout, Veermakers staples mingle with an abundance of recent introductions that reveal an expanding material vocabulary. They include the Reed Library Table, marked by blackened steel struts intersecting its robust mahogany legs at 90-degree angles, as well as Veermakers’ debut upholstered dining chairs and boxlike sconces crafted from cherry and woven Italian silk. Together, they broaden a collection once dominated by substantial wooden furniture. “The key pieces have a strong sculptural presence, but they’re never conceived as objects only to be looked at,” Liljencrantz says. “Comfort, tactility, and function are equally important.”
Liljencrantz intends to use the showroom for exhibitions, collaborations, and intimate dinners, expanding its purpose beyond furniture alone. She inaugurated the space with a selection of paintings by Swedish artist LG Lundberg, who often depicts his home country’s windswept archipelago. The artwork’s deep blues and burnished browns echo the rich grains of nearby mahogany and walnut. That proximity is precisely the point. With the showroom, Liljencrantz says, “people can experience the scale, materials, and atmosphere of the collection in a way that cannot be communicated through images alone.”