Designer: Björn Weckström

Björn Ragnar Weckström (b. 1935, Helsinki) trained at the Helsinki Goldsmith School, graduating in 1956. He initially worked as a silversmith and opened his own gallery in 1958. His early pieces embraced geometric clarity, but a visit to Lapland’s gold fields transformed his approach.

The Raw Gold Breakthrough

In 1958, a customer brought gold nuggets and dust to Weckström’s gallery. He crafted a rough textured necklace using the largest nuggets and cast the dust into minisculptural pendants, marking his pioneering “Raw Gold” style. This bold, unpolished finish was unlike anything seen before in Finnish gold jewelry.

Lapponia & International Acclaim

In 1963, Weckström co-founded Lapponia Jewelry. His Flowering Wall pendant won the Grand Prix in a Rio de Janeiro design competition in 1965, elevating Finnish jewelry onto the global stage. In the late 1960s, he introduced the Space Silver collection and in 1969 created the Planetoid Valleys necklace, famously worn by Princess Leia in Star Wars.

Innovation & Material Fusion

Though early in his career he remained faithful to metal, he later began combining silver and acrylic. The 1970s oil crisis shifted his focus toward acrylic, and in 1975 Yoko Ono’s appearance with his Petrified Lake ring on The Dick Cavett Show sparked a surge of interest in his hybrid aesthetic.

In addition to his work with Lapponia, Weckström also collaborated with the Nuutajärvi glassworks, exploring sculptural forms in glass during the 1970s.

Sculpture & Ongoing Contribution

Weckström’s vision extended beyond small art pieces into public sculpture, but his works appear in urban Helsinki and museums. Over his 60‑year career, he has fused mythology, technology and raw materials into a unique narrative style. In 2021–22, Helsinki’s Didrichsen Museum dedicated a major retrospective titled Man, Machine, and Jewelry Art to his body of work, showing how jewelry and sculpture became intertwined in his practice.