IKEA isn’t satisfied with dominating our domestic interiors–they’ve got greater ambitions it seems. The promotional material from the recently launched IKEA Suskima Gallery finds the Swedish furniture depot invading urban quarters, wistfully curled up in gap spaces, tucked into alley ways, and hunched over in under passes. What would be termed “homelessness” in any other context is here given remarkable sheen and gloss, as if the conditions of vagrancy were something to be ogled at, stylized, and even desired. (With proximity to all those shops and good looking people, why wouldn’t you want to live here?)

OK, we get it, IKEA’s products can fit anywhere, in whatever nook or cranny that realtors call an “city apartment” nowadays. Lucky for you! There’s a modular bookshelf or foldable cupboard or ovoid lamp to join the roaches and brick-wall window view you’ve got for “company”. You could make the argument that the images are studies in scoping out the city’s neglected, in-between, interstitial spaces. But you can’t.

by Samuel Medina

posted in Uncategorized

tagged catalog, furniture, IKEA, IKEA Suskima, promotion, rant, urbanism

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