The way You Live
Timeline
| 1950's | 1960's | 1970's | 1980's | 1990's | 2000's | |
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1965 - The IKEA store in Stockholm is opened. Thousands of people queued for the opening of our flagship store. The 45,800 square metre store has a circular design, inspired by New York’s Guggenheim Museum. The success created huge capacity problems in serving the customers. By opening the warehouse and letting people serve themselves, an important part of the IKEA concept was born. 1969 - The first IKEA store opens in Denmark. The arrival of particleboard makes its mark on IKEA during the 60s. This inexpensive, hard-wearing and easy to process material was a natural fit for IKEA. In 1969, the PRIVAT sofa was designed by architect Åke Fribryter. It had a particleboard base with a white lacquer finish, and brown floral cretonne covers by the textile artist Sven Fristedt. The straight lines, no-nonsense practicality and unbeatable low price were a tremendous success for the times.
1973 - The
first store outside Scandinavia is opened outside Zurich, Switzerland. 1974 - The first IKEA store opens in Munich, Germany. SKOPA chair is designed by Olle Gjerlöv-Knudsen and Torben Lind. Modern plastics give designers lots of new ways to construct good furnishings. But choosing the right production method becomes an important question in the design process. When it came to choosing a manufacturer for our SKOPA chair, the answer was wonderfully simple, even if it did cause a few raised eyebrows. After months of fruitless searching, we took another long look at the shape of the chair and hit upon the idea of asking a manufacturer of plastic bowls and buckets to lend us a hand. Neither form or function were compromised by this unorthodox solution. On the contrary, the final lines were even cleaner. 1975 - The first IKEA store in Australia opens. 1976 - The first IKEA store opens in Canada. 1977 - The first IKEA store in Austria opens. 1979 - The first IKEA store opens in the Netherlands. 1980 - The KLIPPAN sofa appears.The same year that the United Nations declared “The Year of the Child” , IKEA declared “The Year of the Children’s Living Room.” Our KLIPPAN sofa was tough enough to soak up the kind of punishment only children know how to dish out, yet soft enough to fall asleep on when bedtime stories grow too long. The entire cover was removable for machine washing. |
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