The retrospective exhibition “Bruno Mathsson: Architect and Designer,” opening today at The Bard Graduate Center, consists of approximately 150 examples of furniture, photographs, architectural drawings and models installed chronologically on three floors. It’s a show that starts strong but peters out halfway through, a strikingly accurate metaphor of Mathsson’s own unstable projection as a designer over the course of the 20th century.

For the most part, Mathsson’s designs are solid, though far from ground breaking. They split the difference between inspired form and dutiful function, between a traditionally trained cabinetmaker’s desire to tinker and perfect, with design ideas distilled from more radical pioneers such as Marcel Breur, Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier and the earlier example of Thonet. Mathsson was one of the main proponents of the Swedish Modern style that emerged in the 1930’s, and his pieces incorporate its distinctive characteristics, such as lightweight organic materials, use of clean simple lines, and a lack of overstyling — qualities echoed in the restrained, well-balanced, uniform nature of Swedish society itself. However, most of his designs fail to transcend the innovation of their construction, and are held firmly in the realm of technical prowess, disallowing them to become more essential design statements.

The main idea informing Mathsson’s work was quintessential modernism, and he remained true to its tenets his entire life. Along with many other early 20th-century designers, he embraced the belief that a utopian lifestyle was attainable by rejecting historical models, preferring instead designs predicated on functionalism and incorporating new technologies. Furniture should accommodate the body, not the other way around, enhancing and facilitating daily life. In Mathsson’s own practice, these ideas took form as an investigation into the mechanics of seating, for he believed there was a direct correlation between a person’s comfort level and their level of productivity, both professionally and personally. He claimed, in fact, to have his best ideas while relaxing in his lounge chair.

Working with a severely limited palette of light-colored bentwood — an ideal representation of the convergence between craft and industry — and woven hemp webbing, Mathsson designed three main styles of seating between 1931 and 1936: the work chair, the easy chair, and the lounge chair. For the next 20 years he would obsessively alter and refine these shapes, constantly seeking the perfect seating curve. To the stark forms of the ’30s he added curved headrests, bentwood arms, tilted footrests, and even lumbar supports — an idea perhaps ahead of its time. The stretcher frames were also gradually relaxed, adding taper to the legs.

Examples of Mathsson’s early designs — including other, nonchair pieces such as his ingenious gate-leg table (1936) and bookshelf with compression poles (1943) — are handsomely displayed at Bard, giving the viewer a good idea of his trajectory as a designer during this period. Bits of ephemera, such as letters, fabric samples, and catalogs provide insight into Mathsson’s working methods.

The trouble with Mathsson’s early designs is that despite all his ergonomic fiddling, hardly any of the pieces actually invite the viewer to sit down and take a rest; early versions of the Easy Chair even look questionably unstable. This is not to say these pieces repulse or refuse the viewer; they simply feel indifferent to the notion of being sat in by a human. What is most frustrating about Mathsson’s designs, though, is how their visual qualities seem to be mere by-products of the minute alterations he made while trying to calculate a perfect seating curve. They are not the result of good, sensitive drawing, such as with Eames or Aalto, or even Hoffman, and any pleasant movement just feels secondary.

Regardless, these early pieces from the ’30s and ’40s do brim with Mathsson’s own sense of discovery and excitement in his new materials and techniques, and this hints at a sense of play lurking somewhere underneath. The real problems began when he shifted gears in the ’50s, turning to glasshouse architecture and tubular steel designed furniture. Inexplicably, Mathsson’s excitement and sense of play are nowhere to be found, as if he had concluded his inquiry into the machinations of sitting and was now content to produce second-rate versions of better designs. The curators at Bard seem to be aware of this shift, because in contrast to the space allowed for the more important early work, they crammed Mathsson’s last 30 years’ worth of furniture designs into one room, dramatically demarcating for the viewer the downturn in his career.

Bruno Mathsson’s limitations as a designer become clear when his work is seen in its totality. Nevermind, for while Mathsson may not have been one of the most important designers of the 20th century, he certainly deserves his place in the history books, if for no other reason than his contributions to and promotion of Sweden’s particular aesthetics.

Until June 10 (18 W. 86th St., between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West, 212-501-3000).