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Project

The IKEA House. An alternative perspective on modern domestic space through commercial home models

An icon of the West, IKEA—the world’s largest furniture retailer—has garnered attention in various academic, pop, and artistic domains, and has also been examined in detail in the fields of economics, semiotics, branding, and marketing. Yet it seems to be still understudied from an architectural perspective; a knowledge-gap addressed by this doctoral research. By examining moments and periods of the company’s history—through literature, archival research, empirical observations, and oral history—this thesis sheds light on how IKEA embodies architectural transformation; from industrial to post-industrial capitalism, and from modernism to postmodernism. It posits that IKEA is a highly valuable lens through which we can observe significant changes that have shaped society and architecture, from the mid-20th century to the present day.

This thesis contends that IKEA can be regarded as a precursor to today’s neoliberal, cognitive capitalism, with its impact on architecture rooted not so much in the morphological or aesthetic features of its products, but rather in its virtual production. Since its foundation as a family-led, mail-order business in 1943 in Älmhult, Sweden, IKEA has adeptly refined the ways in which it exploits the virtual facets of capital, and has thus become a global expert mediator of the home interior. This thesis follows the trajectory of IKEA’s mediation techniques over the years in parallel with moments within the history of Western architecture, specifically within the context of home interiors, and through a set of case studies.

Instead of a comprehensive analysis of the vast range of items produced and disseminated by IKEA, this thesis hones in on more intangible aspects of production: the design of consumption patterns, and the creation of an “IKEA-culture” at home. These aspects—due to their ubiquity and dual register (both material and immaterial)—shape what the thesis has coined as “IKEA-Land”. Revealing IKEA’s impact on domestic interiors entails a paradigm shift from the analysis of designed products to that of designing strategies, investigated through the following “objects of mediation”: IKEA’s manipulative rhetoric (WORD); the company catalogue, which gave users the tools with which to ignite their own imagination (FORMAT); immersive fictional environments (SCENE); the expansion of corporate culture and markets through advertisement campaigns (IMAGE); and, lastly, the dynamic shopping concept (STORE).

As a “counter-history” of domestic space, this thesis brings the commercial actor IKEA from the periphery of architectural histories to the forefront, expressing its significance as an “other” architectural agent, and in doing so contributing to a wider body of scholarship on interiors from an architectural stance.

Date:1 Nov 2019 →  11 Dec 2023
Keywords:household, domesticity, home models, IKEA, commercial events, mock-ups, domestic space, interior design history, architectural history, domestic models, alternative narrative, counterhistory, IKEA domestic production, showrooms, department stores, events,
Disciplines:Architecture not elsewhere classified, Architectural design history and theory, Architectural history and theory
Project type:PhD project