Norwegian design became Swedish adventure

Desk telephone from 1932. Elektrik Bureau. Photo: Cato Normann/ The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology 's photo archive

The telephone device that formed schools worldwide

In 1930, chief designer Johan Christian Bjerknes at the Elektriks Bureau was commissioned to construct a telephone set adapted to the automatic switchboards. The device should have a number plate. The new design received great international recognition and formed the school for what a modern telephone set should look like. In Norway, production started in 1932.

Requirements for the design of the telephone set in 1930:

GOOD CAPACITY THAT HAS TO TOLERATE THE NEW LONG LINE NETWORK.
SIMPLE MANUFACTURE, USE OF THE NEW MOLDING MATERIAL, BAKELITE.
EASY AND CHEAP TO MAINTAIN.
FORK AND NUMBER DISC MUST BE BUILT INTO THE BATTERY CASE
WITHSTAND TROPICAL CLIMATE, INSECT-PROOF.

Jean Heiberg was given the task of giving shape to the appliance box. The artist's first plaster model turned out to be too demanding to cast in Bakelite. He therefore designed a new and simpler edition. In this way, the phone got its final shape with smooth planes and sharp edges.

Resultatet ble verdens første gaffelløse apparatkasse. Nummerskiven var innebygd i en skråstilt front og det hele ville kunne framstilles i ett støp.

Det svenske firmaet L. M. Ericsson (LME) eide på denne tiden store deler av Elektrisk Bureau og hadde stor tro på utkastet til Bjerknes.

De satte i gang produksjonen i slutten av 1931. Året etter ble telefonen produsert i Norge. Men telefonapparatet ble kjent som ”the Swedish type of telephone”, som det het i reklamen fra L-M. Ericsson.

With a fully cast battery case in Bakelite, the production time was reduced from 7 days to 7 minutes. The telephone set became an international model, and it was as much the aesthetic as the technical properties that were admired.

Johan Christian Bjerknes interviewed by Televerket's business magazine, Verk og Virke in 1975:

Johan Chr. Bjerknes lives in good health at Lysaker outside Oslo - and despite his 86 years, he remembers very well the details behind his idea. Verk og Virke has visited Bjerknes - and we asked him what was the reason why he made a new device.

- When the first automatic telephone switchboard from LM Ericsson came to the country, specifically Larvik in 1930, it came with Swedish devices. EB thought they could have delivered their devices, Bjerknes replies.

- But why in bakelite?

- Til da ble telefonapparatene produsert som nesten håndarbeidede metallkasser som var både dyre og omstendelige å produsere. Jeg observerte at det begynte å komme bruksgjenstander i presset bakelitt. Blant annet så jeg en mahognifarget høyttaler i bakelitt.
Jeg tenkte da at bakelitten også måtte kunne brukes til telefonapparat.

But the shape had to be adapted so that the device could be pressed into a shape. This was the goal when, on my own initiative, I started making model drafts for tomorrow's phone. Finally, after several months of struggle, I arrived at a model that I made in plasticine.

- How was the model received?

- De fleste lo av den og kunne ikke tenke seg at det var fremtidens telefon. Men jeg hadde stor tro på telefonen.
Sjefsingeniør Sjur Borgen i EB ble interessert i modellen min – og brakte saken videre til ledelsen som også ble interessert, forteller Bjerknes.

Elektriks Bureau then contacted artists to process the shape of the device. First the company went to Alf Rolfsen who suggested Jean Heiberg who then made a model. Later, EB went to the architects Morgenstierne & Eide, Blakstad & Munthe Kaas and Ole Lind Skistad. Everyone then had a binding mandate that the telephone should be made of Bakelite casting and that the fork and dial were built into the box. EB then went back to Jean Heiberg - who made a plaster model that was accepted by EB's management.

In the summer of 1930, Adm. Dir. Albert Kvaal at EB to Stockholm to submit the device to the LME - as EB was obliged to do so.

Here, designer Johan Chr. Bjerknes works with the tabletop device from 1953. Photo: The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology 's photo archive

- You also visited big finance - the Wallenberg brothers - in Stockholm?

- I was summoned to them - and they asked about the new device. They only had one telephone set to share - and wondered if the set could be made with two ring tones - one for each of them - to separate the phone calls. But then I replied that now phones are so cheap that they could each get their own device, says Bjerknes.

- LME ble straks interessert?
- Det gjorde de. Det var nødvendig med presseri for bakelitten – og det hadde ikke EB. LME derimot hadde fabrikken Alpha som også laget pressformer og presser. Jeg var der en tid og tegnet detaljer.

LME later sold license rights to e.g. the Swedish Telecommunications Agency, the British Telecommunications and Postal Service and to the United States.

The telephone set has since often been presented as a Swedish-designed product.

- De ble vel rik, Bjerknes?
- Nei det gjorde jeg ikke. Jeg fikk lønnspålegg.

But Bjerknes was not on the lazy side afterwards. In 1942, he took out a patent for the first combined table and wall model.

Telephone design at Elektriks Bureau

EB was central to the technical and design aspects of new telephone sets in Norway. The company was founded in 1882 by jeweler Oluf Thostrup and general agent Carl Söderberg. Engineer Bertrand Kolbenstvedt was employed as manager. In 1885, the company launched its first self-developed telephone device. The similarity with Bell's and LME's contemporary models has been pointed out.

EB expanded towards the turn of the century with larger deliveries of switchboards and appliances both at home and abroad. At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900, the company received a gold medal for its telephone equipment.

After the First World War, higher production costs and stronger competition led EB into crisis. LME became the main shareholder in 1928. If EB was to maintain its market position, rationalization and new working methods were needed. Automation of the telephone network opened up a new market.

The next new standard device in EB's production after 1932 came in 1953, this was the world's first thermoplastic telephone device. It was constructed and designed by Johan Christian Bjerknes in close collaboration with the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation.

I 1974 ønsket Televerket et nytt standardapparat. De lyste ut en konkurranse til norske bedrifter, EB vant med Tastafonen. Målet var å få frem en mer moderne telefon enn 1967-modellen, både teknisk og estetisk. Dette var den første telefonen i Norge med tastatur. Det var første gang EB og Norge brukte industridesign i ordets rette betydning på et produkt, ved hjelp av verdianalyse og ergonomi. Det var studenter ved Industrikurset ved Håndverks- og Kunstindustriskolen i Oslo som sto for designet i samarbeid med EB.

In 1986, EB stood for Norway's first telephone with its own software. The device was named UniTel Memo and was designed by John Houghton.

After the monopoly on the sale of telephone sets in Norway ended in 1987, international telephone models poured into the Norwegian market.

Jean Heiberg (1884-1976)

Født i Kristiania som den yngste av 5 søsken. Som 13-åring ble han sendt til slekt på Hamar, og bodde der til han hadde tatt artium i 1903. Flyttet tilbake til Kristiania og gikk en periode på Tegneskolen. Fra 1904 ble han elev ved Knirrs private tegneskole i München. Deretter flyttet Heiberg til Paris, hvor han bodde til 1912, fra 1908 som elev av Henri Matisse.
Da Heiberg vendte tilbake til Norge i 1929, var det billedhoggerkunsten han var opptatt av, og han fikk nå et oppdrag fra Elektrisk Bureau. Oppgaven var å utforme deres nye telefonapparat.

Written by Laila Andersen/ The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology

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Norwegian design became Swedish adventure

The telephone device that formed schools worldwide

Johan Christian Bjerknes interviewed by Televerket's business magazine, Verk og Virke in 1975:

Telephone design at Elektriks Bureau

Jean Heiberg (1884-1976)

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