Design by Ikea: A Cultural History by Sara Kristofersson (review)

For the resident abroad, there is a moment when a trip to IKEA is just what one needs. No matter the language of the staff or the temperature outside, no matter one’s actual needs, there is a special comfort to be found there: the product names, the food options, and the design sensibility correspond to something recalled from long dark winter nights and long light summer days up north. There are plenty of opportunities for this fix. In 2013, there were 303 largely identical IKEA stores in twenty-six different countries. “No surprises,” as the advertising tag used by the Holiday Inn chain used to run. How do they do it, and what does this Scandinavian commercial invasion mean? To answer that question, Sara Kristofferson, a guest professor at Konstfack, the University College of Arts, Crafts, and Design, Stockholm, has written a cultural history of the marketing giant. Although she has not been admitted to the inner sanctum and has not met the founder, Ingvar Kamprad, she has interviewed a handful from upper management, read numerous IKEA position papers, followed the trajectory of the company’s significant advertising campaigns, and traced out the company’s corporate policies with admirable care. Though there is little that will surprise those who know something of IKEA’s history or who have reflected generally on its international status, this is an informative and thoughtful little book.

The official story of Ingvar Kamprad (b. 1926), IKEA’s founder, is by now well known. Born in Älmhult in Småland, he began his commercial career by selling matches, which he purchased in bulk, to local families in Stockholm. Later, with a small group of helpers, he developed an ingenious furniture line based on asking consumers to work just a little harder than usual. They had to pick their selection from warehouse shelves with minimal staff assistance, carry it home in flat- packs in their own vehicle, and construct it without professional help. In exchange for this kind of cooperation, IKEA offered relatively high quality, modern design, and low prices. The well- known little hex key was one secret; flat packaging saved transportation costs; and it turned out that the Swedish stereotype (fair- minded, socially enlightened, frugal, and design- friendly) could be transformed into massive worldwide profits.

The book under review takes a justifiably skeptical view of the processes and the practices of IKEA. Its author reminds us repeatedly that the immense success of IKEA is due to myth- making, starting with those around Kamprad himself. We know little about Kamprad the man, for example. He is reputed to be thrifty, to live modestly—to practice, in effect, what his company preaches. Whether this is true, Kristoffersson cannot say—no one, it seems, really knows. We also learn how IKEA has taken advantage of the image of Sweden (fair- minded, socially enlightened, etc., etc.) to offer beautiful and economic solutions to knotty twenty- first-century consumer problems: How do I afford a modern kitchen on my salary? Why can’t my bedroom look like an architect designed it? Can my children have sensible, colorful toys without paying for a high- priced designer? IKEA has positioned itself as the inheritor of the traditions of Ellen Key and Gregor Paulsson’s Vackrare vardagsvara (More Beautiful Things for Everyday Life) (Svenska Slöjdföreningen, 1919), of the design movement known now as “Swedish Grace,” and the modernistic whimsy of the Stockholm Exhibition (1930). In some of the book’s most interesting passages, Kristoffersson carefully ties these traditions to IKEA’s evolving advertising practices.

Kristoffersson is troubled by these myths. For all the talk about social equality, Kamprad was a youthful member of Nysvenska rörelsen (the New Swedish Movement), an extreme right- wing group. IKEA has been revealed as using factories that employ child labor and to have a less- than-spotless record on the environment. Some of this is to be expected. After all, can one imagine that doing business at this scale would not...