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Billy weeps... Having started the company aged 17, Ingvar Kamprad went on to pioneer flat-pack furniture, an innovation that would see the company revolutionise furniture design for the mainstream market, and become one of the best-known brands in the world.

from Dezeen

In 1956 the Lövet table, a three-legged, leaf-shaped side table, started a revolution in self-assembly furniture. According to legend, Swedish designer Gillis Lundgren was transporting the table to a photo shoot but was unable to fit it into his car, so he sawed off the legs, to simply reattach later. 

from The Guardian

"Ingvar Kamprad’s journey to world furniture domination was punctuated by problems. He liked to say, self-deprecatingly, that 'no one has had as many fiascos as I have'. These included boycotts, accusations of Nazism, tax avoidance and plagiarism, and alcoholism. Yet those who worked closely with him have suggested he found it painful if things seemed to be going too well, that the struggle and the solution were part of the same continuum. You can perhaps take the farmer’s son out of Småland, but in Kamprad’s case you can’t take Småland, a harsh, agricultural and punishing region, out of the boy."


When we think back to the way we lived before, it is hard to overestimate the revolution that was Ikea.