• Christmas peace, simplicity and happiness

    nirvan richter porträtt

    A conversation with the Founder of Norrgavel

    November 2024

    The business idea was born out of a need and a deep longing – and since its inception in 1993, Norrgavel has gone against the tide. It’s not primarily furniture being sold, but an approach to interior design – and, in fact, to life itself. Take part in this conversation with the founder and designer, Nirvan Richter. Happiness, presence, Christmas spirit, and visions for the future are just some of the topics discussed here!

    In a spacious and carefully renovated space in the Nyhamnen district, close to Malmö Central Station, Norrgavel has had its headquarters for just over two years. The beautiful brick building showcases several preserved details that reflect its history as a warehouse. Here, both the office and the workshop are located, where all furniture prototypes are crafted and fine-tuned into finished models before they are ready to be introduced into Norrgavel's range. It is a time-consuming and artisanal process that can sometimes take up to ten years before everything falls into place.

    In a room overlooking an unremarkable office building from the 1990s and with a glimpse of the busy rail tracks near Malmö Central Station, Nirvan Richter has his office. He doesn’t fit the stereotype of a business leader, even though he is, outwardly, a tall and well-dressed man who recently turned 70. But as soon as he starts speaking, it becomes clear that his focus is on personal growth rather than increased business growth. Of course, the two do not have to be mutually exclusive, and for Nirvan, personal development and entrepreneurship have always gone hand in hand. Through his business, he has embraced the opportunities to grow personally and vice versa. His life philosophy is ultimately about stripping away non-essentials and being consistently present in the here and now. This is also very evident in his design and his overarching approach to furniture – they should serve as a backdrop to life.

    Norrgavel was founded back in 1993 – what has been the best part of all these years?

    – Every year with Norrgavel has been a flow of small triumphs. The joy of being able to bring so many competent people into this business. Every product added to the range feels like a pregnancy and a birth when it is launched. As long as each workday includes this sense that we are taking small steps forward, it feels incredibly rewarding and meaningful to continue.

    Many people say that entrepreneurship automatically leads to having to limit one’s life. But for me, entrepreneurship has not been in opposition to personal growth and spiritual seeking; instead, it has been a great aid. The business has served as a lever to progress in my existential longing.

    ljusstakar smide och meditationskudde

    Which personal qualities have been most useful to you during your years with Norrgavel?

    – My persistence has been incredibly useful. Not giving up just because someone says it’s impossible. Consistency is another important factor. It has been immensely liberating to always be able to fall back on Norrgavel's core values.

    My analytical skills are another quality that has often come in handy. Considering our relatively limited sales, it’s unusual to still be able to offer such a wide range. This sets us apart from other players in the market. The explanation lies in rethinking. And rethinking again, making the right choices from the beginning. This applies to sizes, modular combinations, and so on – details that are crucial for building the range in this company. My analytical skills have been invaluable here.

    Thanks to my sense of presence and longing for simplicity, I have the ability to strip away non-essentials. What I dedicate much of my life to in meditation is also reflected in my design – stripping away non-essentials.

    Norrgavel is a mix of what my parents stood for. From my father: simplicity, asceticism, clarity, the yearning for a natural cycle. From my mother: the desire for exquisiteness, bourgeois comfort, luxury in the form of the best, and the feeling of being worthy of it. Both were courageous individuals and rebels of their time. My father left the predetermined path of working at a sawmill in Dalarna to study as a building engineer in Stockholm. My mother made the opposite journey from her ultra-bourgeois upbringing. Instead of studying medicine, she defied her parents' wishes and moved to Stockholm to work as a housekeeper, eventually becoming a home economics teacher.

    Norrgavel advocates conscious consumption – how does that align with Christmas shopping?

    – Things are rarely purely good or bad. At Norrgavel, we do contribute to some extent to the consumption frenzy, as the products are displayed in such an attractive way. But we are consistent with the environmental aspect and with ensuring that the items are genuine. The goal of what we produce is for it to last a long time. To achieve sustainable development, society must gradually steer consumption in a different direction.

    Conscious consumption means choosing carefully – fewer, but truly excellent items.

    ljusstakar smide och meditationskudde

    What does Christmas mean to you, and how do you create a festive atmosphere at home?

    – Christmas is a time of year when you can reflect or come home to yourself. Even for the most secular people in Sweden, Christmas is a time when there is an opportunity to find peace, even if only for a brief moment. But sometimes I feel that people have too high expectations for Christmas. After all, it’s just one day.

    You don’t just want a superficial, decorative Christmas – the most important thing is to find calm. I’ve structured my life to find techniques that help me achieve this peace. Christmas feels like a safe space for me. That’s when it’s OK to let go of control. I finish everything related to work before Christmas, so I can just relax. Then, I see what happens. It’s a deeply restful approach – the chance to simply be here and now.

    When it comes to Christmas decorations, I wonder why there needs to be so much. It’s enough to put up a few Advent stars and perhaps a Christmas tree. At our home, we instead have fir branches in a tall vase. It must be simple. A few hyacinths and some Christmas beer, that’s really all we need – not out of laziness or because it’s insignificant. But we need to become more moderate without resorting to denial.

    It’s also important to keep the joy of Christmas alive – both joyful and sustainable at the same time.

    Forget the thoughts of a dream Christmas and be present with what is. Then you’ll find the golden moments in everything. This is the essence of mindfulness – the idea of being here and now, all the time.

    Happiness – what does it mean to you?

    – It’s one of the most important questions. We humans are driven by happiness, even though life of course consists of both “happiness” and “unhappiness,” but the key is to balance it. That said, happiness is still very important, because we are so happiness-driven. But we are also happiness-failures. Or rather happiness-losers, because, generally speaking, we don't have control. It is in this context that we need to take a closer look at our materialistic approach, because it causes us to miss something. We never get enough, always thinking we need more. One could say we fail when it comes to defining what happiness is. The worst thing about this consumerism is that we don’t come into contact with the tool to real and lasting happiness. We are rapidly destroying our planet, but it’s almost even more serious that we are also deprived of happiness during our short time on Earth.

    Happiness is a non-substantial state within ourselves. Unfortunately, we are programmed to try to reach happiness through external pleasures. Travel, new things, new impressions – we are constantly fed with things from the outside that give us temporary happiness. Very few in our culture are in touch with the potential that exists in all human being, in reaching happiness within oneself.

    ljusstakar smide och meditationskudde

    What we are really searching for is not that exquisite vintage wine or the perfect partner, but rather a sensation in our own being. Something that can be fleetingly touched upon through gathering these superficial impulses. But by shifting focus directly to what these impulses awaken within us, we can realize that happiness and potential lie within ourselves. It feels as though many people come into contact with this potential too late in life. This is one of the reasons I dedicate so much time to meditation and go on retreats. It’s about stripping away, stripping away, stripping away... Finding calm levels of being itself.

    My personal advice to be happier is to take risks and meditate.

    By risks, I don’t mean bungee jumping or speeding on the motorway. Rather, it’s about opening a Norrgavel store on Birger Jarlsgatan even though you can’t afford it. Of course, it’s important to take risks without losing judgment. It’s about daring to step outside your comfort zone, which is associated with risk. And meditation isn’t something you do, it’s ultimately an undoing. It’s about opening up to another level of being by being extremely present, here and now. Mindful presence, mindfulness, is a prerequisite for meditation, but discussing meditation from an intellectual perspective is rather pointless. Meditation is about stripping away everything that isn’t meditation. Going beyond all identifications. Then, small gaps in the thinking machinery can appear, where one falls into some form of meditative state. With practice, one can gradually carry this state into more and more of what one does, such as in work, during Christmas, and so on.

    For me, emptiness is the best description of deep presence. An emptiness that contains everything. Absolutely everything.

    What are you most proud of?

    – In many ways, I have lived an authentic life. I have taken myself seriously in that sense. I have exposed myself to the challenges that have come my way, and I haven’t been spared from truly tough challenges. You have to be naked and vulnerable. You need to take risks and challenge your fears. But you also need to develop the ability to do this at the right pace, so that you don’t do violence to yourself, otherwise it could end badly. It’s important to always make sure you have support around you. That there’s someone in the background who can catch you if things go terribly wrong. One must respect the human psyche. It’s easy to end up in uncontrollable situations, and that’s why it’s important to have people around you who ensure that you are grounded in the earth.

    Finally, what does the future vision look like for Norrgavel?

    – We continue to work on becoming even better at what we already do well and reaching out with the core values of Norrgavel. Becoming even clearer about what we stand for. This is closely linked to happiness. My vision is for us to become even more refined; in our communication regarding why we do what we do, how we interact with our customers, in our work with our products, and consistently striving not to complicate things unnecessarily.

    Everyone can find something in themselves that resonates with what we express in our core values.


    DID YOU KNOW:

    » Nirvan Richter was born as Erik Johansson in 1954, but at the age of 20, he, along with his two siblings, adopted the name Richter after his Danish grandmother.

    » After discovering the power of meditation in the mid-90s, Nirvan Richter wanted to manifest his newfound life insights. Following guidance from an Indian meditation center in 1999, he changed his given name from Erik to Anand Nirvan (which means 'liberation through bliss').

    » Nirvan Richter grew up in the suburban area of Örby outside Stockholm. He attended Adolf Fredriks music classes and graduated from the natural science program in high school with a final grade of 4.7. He had the second lowest grades in the class. Out of his 16 classmates, 11 became doctors.

    » After completing his architectural studies at KTH in Stockholm, Nirvan Richter chose to deepen his knowledge in furniture making and studied at Carl Malmsten's School.

    » The company name Norrgavel was established in the early 1990s. The Richter family had moved into a townhouse in Lund and started a business that would become the company Norrgavel, in the courtyard house next door. Nirvan Richter contemplated what his company should be called and during a phone call, he was advised to choose a name related to the location of the company. 'What should it be, there's only a pile of north-facing planks here!' he exclaimed, and so it was decided – the name was nailed down.

    » The biggest and most revolutionary insight in Nirvan Richter's life came in the mid-1990s during his education in therapy and meditation when a meditation master told him that he only needed to focus on two things in life: Meditate and take risks.