December 22, 2008

The Ikea Polemic by SpaceTM's Joe

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So everyone's got a bit of Ikea in their house... Haven't they? (Well, unless you think furniture ain't furniture without a baroque flourish). So why is it still a dirty word?
  
Maybe it's because everyone's shopped there. Or maybe it's because there are only so many times coming home with nothing but tea lights seems like a good idea. 

Bauhaus chief Walter Gropius championed a style in architecture and consumer goods that were functional, cheap and easily mass produced. Or to quote the Bauhaus Wikipedia entry (er, thanks to whoever wrote this): "Gropius wanted to reunite art and craft to arrive at high-end functional products with artistic pretensions."

Perhaps Ikea its the perfect realisation of the Bauhaus ideal?

(In other words surely this is better than this...?) 

at 4:10 PM

2 comments:

  1. AnonymousDecember 27, 2008 at 5:34 PM

    I still love Ikea. What it is really easy to forget is how difficult it was to express a modern taste before Ikea arrived. Furniture was still mumsy, florid and stuffed unless you could find a Habitat or afford Capellini and the ilk. Cheap doesn't have to mean bad and Ikea proved that. I don't think it is a guilty pleasure. It's an essential.

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  2. AnonymousJanuary 9, 2009 at 4:53 PM

    I Like Ikea, some people don't like it because they are just snobs. Some Ikea chairs are designed and produced as well (if not better) than Kartell.

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