IKEA’s Living Template for All

 “IKEA Disobedient reappropriates IKEA’s transmedia strategy to empower alternative domesticities, where otherness and engagement are encountered.”

-Andres Jaques: “IKEA Disobedients” MoMA Exhibit

Andres Jaque’s Ikea Disobedient Manifesto refers to the world furniture production giant Ikea as the “biggest actor in the architecture world”.  The ads, showrooms, and displays show happy radiant blond children or people who are having children. This reflects what the company wants to portray everyday life in their catalogs. “IKEA manufactures are aimed at turning the sphere of domesticity into a sunny, happy, apolitical space inhabited by contented, healthy, young people.” 

Andres Jaque shows how this perfect image of a domestic, perfect image of a home doesn’t exist every like Ikea would like to think. His exhibit represents the vast difference from the utopian home Ikea uses to sell their products and the real circumstances homes are in the world. More than likely the average person doesn’t live the Ikea perfect “independent Republic of Our Home”.  The exhibit displays a variety of images depicting different living circumstances. He arranges different furniture and appliances to symbolize the integration of different situations that occur in a private home. 

I think we have to recognize that IKEA’s marketing strategy is focused on showing the perfect utopian home rather than a realistic use. It feels like they push this idea that life should be like for everyone rather than understanding the individual person. As designers we need to be aware of the individual and not create a simple living template for everyone, because not everyone will fit the same way in based on circumstances and unique living conditions.