19/06/2025
NEWS, June 2025: Petit Rond Chair.
Last time I had the luck to launch a furniture-design, as a finished product in cooperation with a furniture-manufacturer, was in February 2019, where LAMMHULTS showed my PONTO-table ( https://www.grumdesign.com/designs/ponto-table ) which in the following time received no less than 8 design-awards!
Since then – also during the covid-lockdown - I have worked steadily and created many innovative and interesting furniture-designs – among them, maybe some of my best. Some prototypes have been displayed at exhibitions, some designs have been shown to a few manufacturers – but, unfortunately, none, in this period, has made it into real production and sale – despite quite some initiatives from my side.
Today, June the 19th 2025, this finally changes, as the local, but international, company FRAMA introduces my Petit Rond steel-chair - originally designed by me in 2020 for a specific room in the old sugar-factory in Stege, Moen.
Actually, FRAMA discovered this design of mine coincidentally (in Dec. 2023).
Read here the whole story about my Petit Rond chair:
Petit Rond Chair
Design: Troels Grum-Schwensen 2020.
Manufacturer: FRAMA ApS
Publicized: June 19th, 2025.
In 2020, during lock-down, an old friend, the blacksmith Allan, called me.
He had rented a corner-room in the old Sugar-factory in Stege, Moen (Denmark) and would like to establish a “Juice-gallery”, as he called it, in this old, worn and raw space.
He had different ideas about the interior-design, but couldn´t make up his mind. One thing, however, he was sure about was, to a huge degree, keeping the raw atmosphere of this charming space, where large parts of the plaster, through times, had fallen from the walls so that they appeared with partially exposed bricks.
Allan would like me to come and see the room and draw plans for the future interior but lamented that his finances were strained and asked if I could do the work for a modest fee.
I agreed but set some conditions. As I said to Allan; “if a job doesn’t give money, then it has to be fun, so Yes, if we can agree that I also design the furniture for this space; the bar-counter, the chairs and the tables - besides, of course, the color-scheme and the whole of the room.
We agreed, met at the site – wearing masks - and I began to work out the interior-plans, the special counter-design and a chair-design specifically for this place. As Allan are a blacksmith, I proposed that the small round chair should be made in steel entirely – by Allan himself, off-course. I named the chair; “Petit Rond”, Allan made a few prototypes, which we together evaluated and adjusted, before he, in 2021, manufactured some 40chairs for the space and its outdoor foreground – and, naturally, an extra chair for me, to place in the “showroom” of my studio in Copenhagen!
In November 2023, I went to a reception for a new huge book about Danish Design (“Dansk Designhistorie”), in which I was represented. At this occasion, I exchanged a few words with a colleague of mine, who were together with a friend of him; Niels, who I hadn´t met earlier. Niels would maybe be able to help me with a problem of mine; storage (or sale) of some of my many furniture-prototypes. Therefore, I gave him my business-card.
Some weeks went and I had almost forgotten the episode, when, suddenly, a mail arrived from Niels. I read the mail with growing interest, as it suggested a meeting in my studio, to look closer on some of my furniture-designs he had seen on my website and, to my positive surprise, the mail was signed; “Niels Strøyer Christophersen, CEO and founder of Frama”.
In late December 2023, Niels arrived at my studio, in company with Framas head of design; Philipp. I showed them the old chair-prototype, for which Niels, in his e-mail, had expressed interest.
As I showed them my studio and my “showroom”, they became aware of a small, round all-steel chair (which were not at my website); “Petit Rond”, off-course. I told them the story above and they expressed interest in evaluating the chair for production and asked to borrow this prototype (as well as the older one of another design of mine).
During 2024, the Frama-developers and I have cooperated to finish the technical details of the “Petit Rond”chair and make it ready for production.
With its uncommonly small footprint and circular seat, Petit Rond are well suited to be placed in Cafés etc, even where the floor-space are limited. The consequence in material-choice; stainless steel solely, allows the chair to be used outdoor as well as indoor.
Petit Rond can be stacked, up to 7 pcs. Despite the small sizes, a carefully shaping and placing of seat and back, gives the chair a much better body-support and comfort than one would expect at first glance.
Troels Grum-Schwensen, Dec. 2024.
Photos: FRAMA.
