There’s an informative piece on the history of IKEA in last week’s New Yorker.  I love their noisy, labyrinthine stores.  I appreciate their mission to bring good design to the masses.  I’ve specified their cabinets for interior remodels.  And I’m dazzled by their skill at knocking-off iconic pieces.  (Is It IKEA or Is It Mid-Century Modern?)  But there’s something in the piece that makes me pause.  IKEA has changed the definition of furniture.

“Furniture” used to be big, important things we bought once in a lifetime and passed on to others.  Now “furniture” is flat-packed, somewhat important things we switch out every few years.  Though IKEA has taken steps to green itself, like discontinuing incandescent bulbs, they’re essentially manufacturing million of temporary beds, sofas, and tables, shipping them to all ends of the earth, and distributing them in immense, new shops built in places one needs to drive to.  The new IKEA-inspired attituded about home decor is perfectly in step with shifting notions of home and family.  But it leaves no room for craft.  What if each of us had a dining table that was a singular, substantial piece, something we saved for, selected carefully, and cared for?  It might make a more beautiful home.

In 1985 architect Michael Graves designed a flat-bottomed stainless steel teapot for Alessi, with a powder blue plastic handle and a sweet, red, bird-shaped stopper. The design is handsome, whimsical, and entirely functional. The teapot is one of those objects that seems both indelibly of its time – a postmodern icon – and timeless – as if it has been around, in our imaginations and in our homes, forever.

It seemed special then that an architect was designing a teapot that someone could go into a department store and buy. That same object, I think, would not have the same power now.  Because consumers are more design-savvy, less awed by the status of an architect-designed object (or an architect-designed building, for that matter), and also because retailers like IKEA and Target consistently offer high quality design at low prices.  The relationship between retail and architecture, a fascinating, symbiotic one, is something I explored recently in AIArchitect.  The only thing for certain is that the entanglement of these two spheres is strengthening a popular design culture, which is good for everyone involved.