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.

The result was the world's first forkless appliance box.

The number plate was built into a slanted front and the whole thing could be produced in one cast. The Swedish company LM Ericsson (LME) owned large parts of Elektrik Bureau at this time and had great faith in Bjerknes' draft.

They started production at the end of 1931. The following year the telephone was produced in Norway. But the telephone set became known as "the Swedish type of telephone", as it was called in the advertisement from LM. 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?

- Until then, the telephone sets were produced as almost handmade metal boxes which were both expensive and cumbersome to produce.
I observed that useful items began to appear in the pressed bakelite. Among other things, I saw a mahogany colored speaker in bakelite. I then thought that the bakelite must also be able to be used for telephones.

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?

- Most people laughed at it and could not imagine that it was the phone of the future.
But I had great faith in the phone. Chief engineer Sjur Borgen at EB became interested in my model - and brought the matter on to management, who also became interested, says 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 was immediately interested?
- They did. A press was needed for the bakelite - and EB didn't have it. LME, on the other hand, had the factory Alpha which also made press molds and presses. I was there for a while drawing details.

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.

- They got rich, Bjerknes?
- No I did not do that. I received a wage order.

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.

In 1974, the Norwegian Telecommunications Authority wanted a new standard device. They announced a competition for Norwegian companies, EB won with the Tastafonen . The goal was to produce a more modern phone than the 1967 model, both technically and aesthetically. This was the first telephone in Norway with a keyboard. It was the first time EB and Norway used industrial design in the true sense of the word on a product, using value analysis and ergonomics. It was students from the Industry Course at the School of Crafts and Arts in Oslo who were responsible for the design in collaboration with 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)

Born in Kristiania as the youngest of 5 siblings.
As a 13-year-old, he was sent to live with relatives in Hamar, and lived there until he had taken the art degree in 1903. Moved back to Kristiania and attended the Art School for a period. From 1904 he became a student at Knirr's private drawing school in Munich. Heiberg then moved to Paris, where he lived until 1912, from 1908 as a pupil of Henri Matisse. When Heiberg returned to Norway in 1929, he was interested in sculpture, and he now received a commission from the Elektriks Bureau. The task was to design their new telephone set.

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

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