The Portal shelf at Klara Doktorow's

At Klara Doktorow’s home, you step right into stories, history and personal details. In her 1930s apartment on Södermalm, functionalist architecture meets a modern update with carefully chosen details. And at the heart of the home stands the TÔNN shelf, where memories and stories share space with the things of everyday life.

- Hi Klara! Where are we now?

We are in the old workers’ housing for women who worked in the nearby tobacco factory. It’s a wonderfully beautiful functionalist building on Södermalm that began construction in 1937. When I bought it in January, it had probably been standing empty for two years since the rental apartments were being converted into condominiums, and no one had renovated anything since the early 1990s. It was the first apartment I looked at and I fell for it immediately, there was such a good energy and the floor plan could be reworked into a small four-room flat of 64 square meters.

- Here, you can really feel that every detail has been chosen with care. What were your thoughts when it came to the renovation and interior design?

I somehow knew right away what I wanted to do. I wanted dark contrasts with burgundy woodwork and a warm white as the base, where textiles and my interior details could stand out. A Japanese-inspired kitchen and a shelf where the practical blends with my love of collecting things. The TÔNN shelf is already a modern design classic, and it matches perfectly with the color of my walls.

Shop Klara Doktorow's Shelf

- On your shelf, everything from stuffed birds to a piece of the Berlin Wall share space. Do you have a favorite object that has found its way onto the shelf?

I love history and stories. There’s nothing on the shelf that doesn’t say something about a part of my life or the places I’ve visited. In a way, it becomes like a small altar. The latest addition is a little wooden crow that I received when I recently turned 40. It symbolizes the transition from the old to the new, it travels between worlds and sees things that not everyone always sees, intuition, perhaps? And that’s pretty much where I am in life right now.