Björn Hultén

Björn Hultén (1928–2008) was a Swedish interior architect who had the honour of designing the facilities of many Swedish embassies around the world, including the ones in Moscow, Washington and Cairo. As a furniture designer Hultén is best known for his numerous chair designs – throughout his career, he designed over 200 chairs, the most famous of which is perhaps the H55 easy chair, designed in 1955. His Kryss safari chair, designed in the 1970s for the Swedish embassy in Cairo, is also one of his most beloved and well-known designs.

Hultén has been described as an uncompromising designer who always aimed at timelessness instead of following trends. An idealist at heart, he had a strong drive to pass on his knowledge and experience to younger generations of architects and designers; Hultén was also a professor at the School of Design and Crafts at the University of Gothenburg.