translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville,
280610: Hofmobiliendepot – Möbel Museum Wien Phenomenon IKEA
Hofmobiliendepot – Möbel Museum Wien
Phenomenon IKEA
09.04.10 – 11.07.10
Pimp up IKEA
IKEA is a phenomenon. The Swedish furniture company effortlessly proved that designer pretensions, individual DIY objects and a collective “big family feeling” do not necessarily contradict themselves. The 100 pieces presented at the Hofmobiliendepot demonstrate how IKEA design has developed over the years. Twenty objects are loans from the IKEA museum in Älmhult. The walking-chair design studio constructed pedestals, each 50cm high, out of polyurea and their quasi-organic contours resemble the Swedish Skerry Islands. These islands in turn display classics at eye level such as ÖGLA (1964, Gillis Lundgren), the DIY-version of Thonet chair Nr. 18, creations by Bengt Ruday, one of IKEA’s design pioneers, PS-collections, as well as other objects.
17-year old Ingvar Kamprad founded the company in 1943 and furniture was included in the product line in 1948. The first catalogue was published in 1951; today the catalogue has been published 200 million times in 28 languages. Samples of Austrian catalogues as well as more exotic ones from Israel, China, Japan and Saudi Arabia are displayed at the Hofmobiliendepot. “IKEA is a seismograph of society”, curator Markus Laumann points out. In 1956, the production of DIY furniture began. The modular shelf system IVAR became a synonym for the generation who wanted to set themselves apart from their parents and who preferred to improvise rather than be passive consumers. Until today, 41 million BILLY shelves have been sold worldwide.
In 1977, IKEA opened its first store in Austria and in 1995, the first PS collection was presented at the furniture fair in Milan. Under this label, designers added a pinch of innovation to the serial production: in 1998, Ehlen Johannson reconstructed high voltage isolators as PS Tealight and Nicholai Wilig Hansen placed a red locker horizontally to a sideboard: PS Red Cabinet. Henrik Kjellberg and Mattias Lindqvist transformed a bucket into the droplight PS Lamp. In 2002, Maria Vinka invented the rocking chair PS Gullholmen, made of woven banana fibres on a metal frame, and in 2003, Hanna Ivarsson & Per Ivar Ledang designed the children’s chair PS-Brum, which is also available as cuddly toy.
The pimp up light show on the ground floor, to which six Austrian designers were invited to adapt IKEA objects, is particularly amusing. walking-chair designer Karl Emilio Pirker transformed the white lamp PS MASKROS (Marcus Arvonen) with colourful, translucent plates into a flowerlike lamp called Shiatsu Flower. Vandasye Design (Peter Umgeher and Georg Schnitzer) immersed the full moon white droplight Fado with diverse gray- and black tones into abstract spheres.
By Isabella Marboe
Hofmobiliendepot – Möbel Museum Wien
1070 Vienna, Mariahilfer Strassse 88, Entrance Andreasgass7
Tel: +43 1 524 33 57
Fax. + 43 1 524 33 57 – 666
email: info@hofmobiliendepot.at
http:www.hofmobiliendepot.at
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
280610
Möbelmuseum Wien
1070 Wien, Mariahilfer Strasse 88, Eingang Andreasgasse 7
Tel: +43-1-524 33 57
Email: info@moebelmuseumwien.at
https://www.moebelmuseumwien.at/
Öffnungszeiten: Di-So 10-17 h
Möbelmuseum Wien
1070 Wien, Mariahilfer Strasse 88, Eingang Andreasgasse 7
Tel: +43-1-524 33 57
Email: info@moebelmuseumwien.at
https://www.moebelmuseumwien.at/
Öffnungszeiten: Di-So 10-17 h