Over many years, IKEA have become associated with quality,
minimalism and affordable prices. Though the company always tried to uphold
similar values, the world’s largest furniture retailer had to undergo some
changes in production through the decades, and had to adjust to the fads and
trends of many eras. As eras passed, IKEA remained, and they’ve evolved into
what we recognize them for nowadays.
Household Quotes were interested in seeing the evolution of
IKEA furniture designs over the decades, so they hired digital artists to try
and make compelling visualizations of IKEA furniture throughout those years.
And so they did: below you’ll see the 70-year evolution of IKEA living room
design, from the 1950s to the 2020s, and believe me, it’s an interesting and
engaging history lesson.
1. 1950s (IKEA living room cost = $1,819.34)
“The first IKEA store
opened in 1958, but it started as a mail-order concern. Customers would send
off a completed coupon from their IKEA catalogues – which was mostly written by
the company’s founder, Ingvar Kamprad. The centrepiece of our 1950s lounge is a
‘beautiful elm’ UTÖ table that seems purpose-built to store incoming catalogues
and lifestyle magazines.
But that PALETT lamp is a low-key talking-point, too.
Available in ox-blood, bright blue, pigeon grey, or plain-old black, the
PALETT’s palette illustrates the story-telling capacity of IKEA’s products.
‘Nowhere else would you be able to find such a stable and beautiful lamp at
such an outstanding price,’ yells the brochure in true 1950s salesman
parlance.”
2. 1960s (IKEA living room cost = $1,764.22)
“Into the Mad Men era, and furniture stood up on its legs to
allow the Hoover-buying public to reach every last ball of floor fluff. That
RIO coffee table is very much for company rather than catalogues. The
plastic-treated teak circle-top allows guests more leg room (we’re told),
following the design by Arne Wahl Iversen, a young Danish designer who
specialized in what we might call ‘office casual.’
You’ll also note the atom-age spin of the helixed wallpaper
and circular GYLLEN rug. But the science isn’t so hard: the ‘soft and snug’
GYLLEN has ‘long fringes,’ its ‘delicious colour scale’ created with
high-quality dye for a ‘lasting lustre.'”
3. 1970s (IKEA living room cost = $1,701.32)
“Say what you will about 1970s style, but no other decade
was bold enough to give us the IMPALA sofa. Believe it or not, the IMPALA’s
designer was the same man who created the BILLY bookcase: Gillis Lundgren, who
joined IKEA as its fourth employee in 1953. Lundgren was also the same young
man who unscrewed that historic LOVET table, bringing flatpack furniture into
the mainstream. (The coffee table pictured here is the fibreglass/polyester
CENTRUM 50).
That AMARANT standing lamp is also a bit saucy, and decidedly
1970s. A nickel-plated stem, crowned with white or orange acrylic plastic, it
offers a pull switch and the lamp can be taken apart and reconstructed as a
table lamp if preferred.”
4. 1980s (IKEA living room cost = $1,480.25)
“Yes, that’s a BILLY – ‘Sweden’s most-purchased bookcase’
according to the catalogue. In 1986, young William Bookcase was available with
an oak veneer or nut-brown glaze, with five design alternatives. Having debuted
in 1979, by the time of its 30th anniversary the BILLY would be produced at a
rate of 15 bookcases per minute, and the 41 million units sold would have
formed a wall 70,000 kilometres long.
However, the BILLY also marked the ushering in of a more
conservative period in IKEA design. Our 1980s IKEA living room is something of
a nightmare flashback: the bland HEDE armchair and YSTAD sofa fading into the
background next to the faintly more risky rattan VIBY side table.”
5. 1990s (IKEA living room cost = $2,086.23)
“Nobody knew what they were doing in the 1990s, style-wise.
But IKEA’s latest lines were at least comfortable and practical. Who hasn’t got
lost on a TULKA sofa? (Smelling like three decades of dog at the moment of
writing.) The steel and leather MULLSJO was a bolder (failed) style experiment,
but no less comfy.
The RÄCKE picture frame is recent enough and gaudy enough to
be a thrift store regular in the 2020s. It was available in black or white
lacquered metal with a glass front. But the real ‘take-home’ from our 1990s
IKEA lounge is the AKROBAT storage unit, which paired a sense of mid-century
style with a chipboard skeleton that wasn’t breaking any backs.”
6. 2000s (IKEA living room cost = $1,732.95)
“The design world got back on its feet for the turn of the
21st century. Noboru Nakamura’s revived 1976 POÄNG cantilever armchair offered
a fine set of bare bones around which home-makers could drape a range of
fabrics and cushions. ‘A chair shouldn’t be a tool that binds and holds the
sitter,’ said Nakamura. ‘It should rather be a tool that provides us with an
emotional richness and creates an image where we let off stress or
frustration.’
The double-pronged DIPODI lamp is more divisive. Bold and
practical, or an uninspired misstep? And the ENERYDA table is definitely built
for comfort, not speed: so strong and clunky you could even take it apart and
rebuild your kitchen with it.”
7. 2010s (IKEA living room cost = $2,806.45)
“Now a vastly international concern, IKEA returned to its
Swedish roots with the 2014 STOCKHOLM sofa. Three back cushions and just two
bum cushions to share make it a distinctly socialist affair. ‘The full-grain
leather becomes softer,’ promises the catalogue, ‘and acquires a darker tone in
time.’ This was IKEA’s first STOCKHOLM range in nearly a decade. That gorgeous
wool rug is also from the STOCKHOLM collection, which is curated around IKEA’s
higher quality wares. The smooth-woven little number was ‘hand-woven by skilled
craftsmen and fits perfectly into a day-room or under the dining table.'”
8. 2020s (IKEA living room cost = $1,112.95)
“Now it is the future. Clutter is outlawed. Sustainability
is sexy. But the ghost of that 1950s salesman remains: the NOLMYRA armchair is
‘layered glued bentwood and is comfortable even for your wallet,’ according to
the Swedish brochure.
The BRÖNDEN rug is fast becoming a modern classic, and is
marketed on the ethics of its supply chain. And Johan Kroon’s VITTSJÖ table has
a timeless geometric feel that wouldn’t be out of place on a Stanley Kubrick
space station. ‘I chose materials that really bring out books, vases and other
favourite things,’ says Kroon. ‘The straight, simple lines of the metal give
the furniture a graphic expression and put an attractive frame around all your
personal things.'”
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