Ikea's unyielding sameness is a stabilizing force in the life of one NPR employee— but they wanted novelty anyway, at any cost. So they traveled thousands of miles to the Ikea Museum.
— for subtlety. I was here to see the Ikea Museum, which at the time was in the basement of the Ikea Hotell. While small in size and scope, the collection was so shameless in its boosterism that it concluded with a depiction of an Ikea store on the moon.Scenes from the Ikea Hotell/Museum : a soaring assemblage of Lacks, the ubiquitous end table; a dramatically lit Lövet, from the 1950s; the Dino highchair, essentially a bag on a metal stand.
I first met Ikea at age 23. I imprinted on the store like some indiscriminate baby bird. The unintimidating furniture, grouped like herds of gentle, modern livestock, quieted my noisy mind. The directional arrows on the floor and the grid system of the warehouse imposed order. The mysterious, Ä and Ö-ladenTo that end, maybe glomming onto Ikea was just a vehicle to differentiate myself.
I failed to find such an item in Prague. I failed on a press tour of a brand-new D.C.-area Ikea. A friend failed on my behalf in Madrid. Then I heard about Älmhult. After a 3.5-hour train ride from Stockholm, I arrived at the Ikea Hotell/Museum. The women at the front desk looked concerned. Their facial expressions said,"You came from America for this?"
Downstairs in the museum, I saw a graceful, spiraling assemblage of Lacks, the chosen end table of early adulthood, near a placard heralding Ikea's embrace of particleboard. I discovered that Ikea once sold pianos and inflatable furniture. I admired the modest, stewardess-y uniforms worn in the 1960s by Ikea personal shoppers.© Inter IKEA Systems B.V.
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