Scandinavian Design: A Learning-Led Route Through Denmark, Sweden and Finland

A birch stool, a glass vase with a wavering rim, a bold printed curtain and a plain oak chair can sit together in one room and look as though they were made for each other. That shared sense of purpose is what most people mean by Scandinavian design, yet each object comes from a different place, a different material and a different story. Following those stories in sequence, from Copenhagen’s furniture makers through Sweden’s textile and glass towns to the architecture of Helsinki, is the idea behind our Scandinavian Design Small Group Tour through Denmark, Sweden and Finland. This guide follows the route stage by stage and explains what each stop adds to the picture.

The ideas behind Scandinavian design

The phrase suggests a single style, but it grew out of separate national movements that shared some convictions. The clearest early statement came from Sweden. In 1919 the art historian Gregor Paulsson published Vackrare vardagsvara, “More Beautiful Everyday Things”, arguing that good design should improve ordinary household objects for ordinary people. He went on to direct the Swedish Society of Crafts and Design, Svenska Slöjdföreningen, from 1920 to 1934. The society itself, known today as Svensk Form, had been founded in 1845, which shows how long the Nordic countries had been thinking about the link between craft, industry and daily life.

The ideas reached an international audience after the Second World War. The touring exhibition Design in Scandinavia opened at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond in January 1954, went on to the Brooklyn Museum that spring and travelled until 1957 to 24 museums in the United States and Canada, drawing around 660,000 visitors. It showed work from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden side by side. From 1951 to 1970 the Lunning Prize, founded by Frederik Lunning, who ran Georg Jensen’s agency in New York, was awarded to two Scandinavian designers each year, adding to the region’s reputation.

What the countries shared were values rather than a look: function before ornament, honest use of natural materials such as wood, wool and glass, and design at the scale of the home. What made them different was history and industry. Denmark built on its cabinetmakers. Sweden had glassworks in the forests of Småland and textile mills in Borås. Finland, independent since 1917, became known for its architecture as much as for its glass and printed textiles. A route through all three countries lets you see those differences as well as the common ground.

Following design as a route

Design is easiest to understand where it was made. A chair in a museum case tells you how it looks; a visit to the factory that still makes it, or the house its designer lived in, tells you why it looks that way. The tour is built in that order. It starts in Denmark with furniture, showrooms and public space, crosses into Sweden for industry, textiles and glass, and finishes in Finland with architecture, printed textiles and a glass factory. Along the way it uses trains, a ferry across the Kattegat and an overnight ferry across the Baltic, so the journey between the design centres becomes part of the story.

Copenhagen: furniture, light and public space (days 1 to 6)

The first six days are spent in and around Copenhagen, and they lay the foundations. Danish modern furniture grew from a strong tradition of cabinetmaking, in which architects and master craftsmen worked side by side, and our guide to Danish design and its everyday modernism follows that story from Kaare Klint’s furniture school of 1924 to the cabinetmakers’ exhibitions that launched chairs by Hans Wegner and Finn Juhl. It reached factory production with Arne Jacobsen’s Ant, Egg and Swan chairs. On the route, the emphasis is on seeing those ideas at work in factories, showrooms, buildings and streets rather than reading about them.

On the tour, that history is approached through places rather than lectures. Day two includes a guided walk along Strøget, made car-free in 1962, focusing on the Danish interior design labels that have flagship stores there. Day three brings the Danish Architecture Centre, housed since 2018 in the harbour-front BLOX building, and Christiansborg Palace. Day four travels about an hour to Allerød to visit Fritz Hansen, the maker founded in 1872 that still produces Jacobsen’s Ant and Egg chairs, then returns to Copenhagen for Paustians Hus, the waterfront showroom of 1987 by Jørn Utzon, the architect of the Sydney Opera House, and Superkilen, the Nørrebro park whose 108 plants and objects reflect residents from 62 countries. Day five turns to design as an export industry at Utzon’s Danform Showroom of 1985, with a talk on design in export markets (subject to availability), then the textile maker Kvadrat and Designmuseum Denmark. Day six visits Utzon’s Fredensborg Houses of 1959 to 1962 and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

Two ideas from these days recur through the rest of the route. The first is light: Poul Henningsen’s layered lamp shades, made with Louis Poulsen from the 1920s onwards, were designed to light a table softly without glare, and the same care for low, warm light turns up in Swedish and Finnish interiors later on the route. The second is the city itself as a design project, a theme our guide to Copenhagen’s museums, showrooms and public spaces explores in more detail. After Strøget closed to cars, the architect Jan Gehl and his colleague Lars Gemzøe measured how people used the street, and found that between 1968 and 1995 the number of people stopping to sit, look and listen on a summer afternoon rose by about 330 percent. In 2023 Copenhagen was the UNESCO-UIA World Capital of Architecture. Designmuseum Denmark, visited on day five, adds the historical record: it occupies the former Frederiks Hospital on Bredgade, built between 1752 and 1757, and reopened on 19 June 2022 after a two-year renovation.

Aarhus and the crossing to Sweden (days 7 and 8)

On day seven the group takes the train to Aarhus, Denmark’s second city, and visits the underground Viking Museum, a reminder of how far back Danish craft traditions run. The next morning brings ARoS, the city’s modern art museum, before the group travels on to Frederikshavn and boards the ferry across the Kattegat to Gothenburg. Arriving in Sweden by sea is a fitting way to mark the change of country and of emphasis, from furniture towards industry.

Aarhus also holds a link back to Copenhagen’s furniture story. Its city hall, built between 1939 and 1942, was designed by Arne Jacobsen with Erik Møller, and the young Hans J. Wegner, whom their office had taken on in 1938, designed its furniture. The pieces for the main building were made by hand, while those for the office wings were produced by a local manufacturer, an early sign of the partnership between design and industry that the rest of the route explores.

Gothenburg and Borås: museums, industry and textiles (days 8 to 11)

Gothenburg is Sweden’s main west-coast port and an industrial city, and its design story is closely tied to manufacturing. Our guide to Sweden’s history and culture sets the city in the wider story of the country. A guided city tour on day nine covers the old Haga district, the Avenyn boulevard and the Maritiman maritime museum, and the free afternoon leaves time for the Röhsska Museum, Sweden’s museum of design, fashion and applied arts. Founded in 1904 with a bequest made in 1901 and opened to the public in 1916, it holds more than 50,000 objects. Nearby, the furniture shops of Magasinsgatan show contemporary Swedish design at street level, and for those who prefer art, the Gothenburg Museum of Art, the National Museum of World Culture and Göteborgs Konsthall are also within reach.

Day ten is given to Volvo’s design and engineering story. The company was founded in Gothenburg in 1927, and its cars show industrial design at work, where safety, engineering and form have to be resolved together. The afternoon is free to continue exploring the city. On day eleven the group drives to Borås, a town long associated with Swedish textiles, to visit the Swedish School of Textiles. It grew from a weaving school established in 1866 to teach jacquard weaving, when Sweden was facing competition from cheaper foreign fabrics, and became part of the University of Borås in 1982. Since 2013 it has shared converted factory buildings in the Simonsland district with the Textile Museum of Sweden, so the town’s industrial past and its design future sit under one roof.

Småland: Sweden’s glass country (days 12 and 13)

From Gothenburg the route travels by train, a journey of about three hours, to Växjö in the southern province of Småland. The area between Växjö and Kalmar is known as the Kingdom of Crystal, Glasriket, with more than a dozen glassworks and studios. On day twelve the group visits the Swedish Glass Museum in Växjö, run by Kulturparken Småland, which holds more than 45,000 objects, with collections reaching back to the late eighteenth century.

Day thirteen goes to the source. Kosta was founded in 1742 by two officers from the army of King Charles XII, Koskull and Staël von Holstein, and the tour visits the Kosta Boda workshops. Watching molten glass gathered, blown and shaped makes plain how much of Scandinavian design depends on skilled hands as well as good drawings. The nearby Växjö Konsthall, with free admission, is an option for those who want more contemporary art.

Stockholm: architecture and design on Skeppsholmen (days 14 to 16)

A train of about three and a half hours brings the group to Stockholm on day fourteen, and the rest of the day is free to explore the city at leisure. Day fifteen is the design day: a guided tour focusing on modern architecture, including buildings by the Swedish architect and designer Thomas Sandell, followed by visits to Moderna Museet and ArkDes, the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design, both on the island of Skeppsholmen. The island was long a naval base, chosen for its position at the approach to the city from the Baltic, and its former military buildings now house the museums. Moderna Museet opened there on 9 May 1958. ArkDes was founded as an architecture museum in 1962, opened on Skeppsholmen in 1966, took its present name in 2013 and became part of Moderna Museet on 1 January 2026.

After a free morning on day sixteen, the group boards the Tallink Silja overnight ferry to Helsinki, with dinner on board, and wakes up in Finland, where breakfast is served on the ship before arrival.

Helsinki: architecture, print and glass (days 17 to 21)

Finland gives the route its final chapter. On arrival on day seventeen, a local guide leads a tour of Helsinki’s main sights with a focus on architecture, and in the afternoon the group visits the Aalto House on Riihitie with the Program Leader. Among the city’s landmarks is Eliel Saarinen’s Central Station, inaugurated in 1919, and our guide to Helsinki covers its wider highlights. Completed in August 1936, it was designed by Aino and Alvar Aalto as their home and office, and the office worked there until 1955. Today it is a home museum, and seeing the rooms where the Aaltos lived and drew explains their work better than any catalogue. Free time in Helsinki over the following days leaves room for the city’s Design Museum, devoted to Finnish and international industrial design, fashion and graphic design, and for the Ateneum, the home of Finnish art from the nineteenth century onwards.

Day eighteen follows the Aaltos’ ideas into business. In 1935 Aino and Alvar Aalto founded Artek with Maire Gullichsen and Nils-Gustav Hahl, to sell furniture and to promote a modern culture of living through exhibitions and education. The group walks to the Artek showroom for a talk with its marketing manager, then visits the flagship store of Marimekko. Founded in Helsinki in 1951 by Viljo and Armi Ratia, Marimekko became famous for bold printed fabrics, among them Maija Isola’s Unikko pattern of 1964. The day ends at Kiasma, the Museum of Contemporary Art. Its design by the American architect Steven Holl was chosen from 516 competition entries, and the building opened in May 1998.

On day nineteen the group travels about an hour and a half from Helsinki to Iittala, in the countryside of southern Finland, where a glassworks was founded in 1881, for a guided tour of the Iittala design museum and glass factory. Together they tell the story of Finnish glass, from Alvar Aalto’s undulating vase, shown at the Paris World Exhibition of 1937, to the work of designers such as Tapio Wirkkala, who won a design competition for the company in 1946, and Timo Sarpaneva, whose i-line glassware of 1956 became the company’s trademark. Coming a week after Kosta, the visit makes it easy to compare two national glass traditions on one route. Helsinki was World Design Capital in 2012, under the theme of embedded design, and a free day on day twenty leaves time to explore the city further before the farewell dinner.

Five threads of Scandinavian design to follow

The route is arranged by place, but it can also be read by material and discipline. Five threads run through it, and following any one of them across the three countries is a good way to see what is shared and what is national.

Furniture

Furniture is where Denmark leads, with cabinetmaking turned to modern use at Fritz Hansen in Allerød, and where Finland answers, with bent birch in the Artek showroom in Helsinki. Comparing the two shows how Danish oak and teak craft and Finnish birch engineering arrived at different answers to the same questions of comfort, economy and form.

Architecture

Architecture frames every stage, and its character changes with the country: commercial and residential in Utzon’s Danish showrooms and courtyard houses, public and institutional at ArkDes in Stockholm, domestic at the Aalto House and contemporary at Kiasma in Helsinki. Seen in sequence, these buildings show how closely Nordic architects linked a building’s structure to the furniture and fittings inside it.

Textiles

Textiles show three different worlds: Kvadrat’s fabrics for architecture and interiors, a school rooted in a nineteenth-century weaving town at Borås, and Marimekko’s printed cotton in everyday Finnish life. Together they show textiles as industry, education and art.

Glass

Glass links Sweden and Finland directly. Swedish glass in Småland grew up around forest glassworks and their skilled blowers, while Finnish glass at Iittala became closely tied to architects and designers such as Aalto, Wirkkala and Sarpaneva. Watching both a week apart shows how two neighbouring countries treated the same material differently.

Industrial design

Industrial design is the least expected thread. Fritz Hansen shows furniture becoming an industrial product, and Volvo in Gothenburg shows design applied to engineering and safety. The Danform Showroom’s talk on design in export markets (subject to availability) belongs here too, as a reminder that Scandinavian design succeeded abroad because it was manufactured, marketed and sold as well as admired.

How physically demanding is the tour?

It is graded Level 2 (Moderate). Travellers should be able to carry their own luggage, use stairs and manage three to five hours of physical activity a day, which can include walking up to about 8 kilometres on uneven ground.

What is included in the tour?

The tour includes 20 nights’ hotel accommodation, 20 breakfasts, two lunches and six dinners, coach, train and ferry travel, a Tour Leader for the full journey, all excursions, entrance fees and local guides, and service charges and gratuities. International airfares, travel insurance and personal expenses are not included.

Is the talk at the Artek showroom guaranteed?

No, it is offered subject to availability. The visit to the Artek showroom on day eighteen is part of the itinerary, but the talk with the company’s marketing manager depends on their schedule at the time. The rest of the day’s program, Marimekko’s flagship store and Kiasma, does not depend on the talk.

Further reading on Denmark, Sweden and Finland

For background on each country, our answers to common questions about travelling in Denmark, visiting Sweden and travelling in Finland cover language, food and the best time to go. Our guide to discovering Scandinavia and Viking Denmark traces the longer history behind the region, and our article on hygge, Denmark’s very own brand of cosiness, explains a Danish idea often confused with design itself.

Scandinavian design is often reduced to a look: pale wood, white walls, a single good lamp. Travelling through Denmark, Sweden and Finland in sequence shows something richer. It is a set of shared values worked out differently in each country, by cabinetmakers and glassblowers, weavers and architects, industrialists and printmakers. Seeing where they worked, and what they made, turns a familiar style into a story with people, places and reasons behind it.