There are feelings you get when you enter an Ikea store. The vertiginous experience of getting lost in their craftily designed labyrinth. The surprise of wandering into something you hadn’t intended to buy. The discomfiting almost-warmth of a fake apartment. The faintly reassuring sense that your children and your car are in someone else’s hands. Then the odd realization that you’re really inside a high-security structure on the distant edge of town.
Would you like to feel that way all the time? The people who run the Swedish home-furnishings behemoth are launching a bold push into the business of designing, building and operating entire urban neighbourhoods.
Where once they placed a couch in a living room, the Swedes now want to place you and 6,000 neighbours into a neglected corner of your city, design an entire urban world around you, and Ikea-ize your lives.
Full article.
No there will not be Ikea furniture or even a store.
Rather, this is garden city movement, without gardens.
Quick, someone send them the works of Hayek, Jane Jacobs, and Jim Scott. Or do their warnings not apply to Scandinavians?
h/t @legalnomads
Update: At first it looked like I may have been caught as an April fool by this story, but commenters suggest not. I really don’t know, but I like to think the story is true, so let’s go with that.
6 Responses
I wonder if the towns will be modelled on this prototype:
http://www.theawl.com/2009/10/china-reveals-secret-swedish-city-of-woodworking-lesbians
It’s not a joke :-) and frankly I don’t even see the fuss.
So IKEA has a subsidiary that’s building houses. They have done that in Sweden for years. They also have a bank (IKANO), a bank that also owns and sublets apartments. Why is this weird? I’m sure that there are other successful companies in the world that are trying to broaden their business.
Obviously people won’t be living in Ikea-stores as the article points out: “There will not be Poäng armchairs adorning the living rooms and Billy bookcases covering the walls. The houses will not require Allen keys to assemble. Meatballs in lingonberry sauce will not be served at the restaurants.”
Funny article but completely misses the point. Its like saying that Richard Branson builds space crafts to push CD:s.
I don’t think you have to be afraid of it turning into a garden city-thing. They are just using their insanely high pile of money to build houses that people can afford. Personally I would rather see them focusing on the poorer part of the planet, and rebuild some of the worlds slum instead of UK working middle class but it’s a start.
See: http://www.boklok.com (bo=live and klok=smart)
A few other articles on this with pre-April 1 dates: here, here and here.
Seems legitimate to me (see http://strandeast.com/#about). I’m not sure it’s such a major departure from other housing developments.
Argh. And I avoided being fooled so well this year.
This was published on 1 April and looks like an April Fool’s joke?