March 15, 2010
Ikea France has launched a new marketing campaign: furnishing Metro stations.
Perhaps Parisians regard the Swedish furniture juggernaut differently than Hamburgers & Beijingers.
More pictures at Freshome, via Gothamist.
Filed under: Random · Tags: Ikea, marketing, Paris, transportation
December 3, 2009
While Americans tend to pigeonhole IKEA as the beginning and end of home furnishing for the pre- and post-grad years known as the early twenties, the rest of the world sees it from other perspectives.
In this corner, coming in at some 50-strong, we have the displaced and disgruntled creative elite of Hamburg’s Frappant office building, staging an ideological protest by (re?)appropriating the showroom as a functional workspace.
And in the other corner, we have legions of workaday Chinese, young relatives and cameras in tow, drawn to the blue-and-yellow monolith purely for sport and leisure, with little to no intention of actually buying anything.
And thus, Sweden’s pride and joy asserts its rightful status as a symbol for capitalism, globalization and (lest we forget) affordable modern design.