Rattan Chair by James Irvine for Ikea, 2002

Though he passed away prematurely, in February 2013, at the hands of pneumonia, British product and furniture designer James Irvine endures as a visionary of millennial-era functionalism. Often collaborating with the likes of Jasper Morrison, Marc Newson, Konstantin Grcic, , among others, Irvine blended ergonomics and practicality with wit and style, designing everything from bottle caps to city buses.

Born 1958 in London, Irvine trained first at the Kingston School of Art, and then, at London’s Royal College of Arts—the powerhouse institution that has incubated everyone from Max Lamb, Simon Hasan, and  to Committee’s Harry Richardson and Studio Glithero’s Sarah van Gameren. Upon graduating in 1984, the resolutely post-punk Irvine moved permanently to Milan to join in the blossoming postmodern movement. He took a design consultant position at Olivetti—working alongside Memphis pioneers Ettore Sottsass, Michele De Lucchi, and George Sowden’s—before moving on to Toshiba’s design studio, where he proposed highly ergonomic computer designs. By 1989, he was seen as a rising design star in Milan and was invited to design a Pepper Mill for Alessi and taps for Fantini, which bear the flamboyant geometries of the late Memphis years. 

Although Olivetti folded under competitive pressures from Epson, Canon, and the like, Irvine remained in partnership with Sottsass well into the millennium; their salient post-Olivetti projects included the establishment of Vitra’s Citizens Office (1991) initiative, which essentially outlined principles for the maximally ergonomic workplace, as well as the multi-hued interior for Milan’s Malpensa airport in 2000. 

Irvine also maintained his own studio, which produced the Piceno Collection for Cappellini in 1991; this vividly-painted beechwood furniture series—including a chair, a coatrack, and tables—appropriated traditional silhouettes alongside eccentric curves, evincing the liminal stage Irvine found himself after the 1980s: somewhere between postmodern ostentation and the elegant resolve of his later work.

At the turn of the millennium, Irvine remained prolific. Some of his most enduring designs from this era are the Lunar Sofa for B&B Italia / C&B Italia (1998), the X5 Rug for Asplund (1999), and the Centomila Chairs for Magis (1999). In 1999, he procured a substantial commission from the city of Hannover to head up a full re-design of their bus fleet, to be manufactured by Mercedes-Benz. From then on, he continued to design a variety of goods at all scales, conceptual and practical, for luxury and economy brands, for example his Float Circle Light for Artemide (2000), rattan Gunghult Rocker for Ikea (2002), his Lounge Chair for WMF (2006)—before delving, in 2007, into an art directorship at Thonet, for whom he designed his innovative Loop Chair in 2004. During this tenure, Irvine introduced Thonet to Muji—for whom Irvine had also designed—and the two brands collaborated in 2009 on streamlined updates to Thonet’s traditional forms of tubular steel and bentwood furniture.

Swedish mega-brand Ikea was founded by Småland-born Ingvar Kamprad (1926) in 1943. According to legend, Kamprad even as a boy had big dreams of starting his own business, and he was able to launch Ikea at age 17 through a small loan from his father as a reward for doing well in school.  The name is an acronym for “Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd”—Elmataryd being the name of the farm where Kamprad grew up, and Agunnaryd the name of his hometown. The company’s philosophy from the beginning was grounded in a Swedish socialist tenant: “people who are not well off should be given the same opportunities as people who are.”

In the early years, Ikea did not sell the furniture for which it is now famous; instead, it sold a variety of household items, like soap, pens, and stockings, at first locally and then by mail order through print advertisements. Ikea launched its first furniture line in 1948 with a few armchairs and tables produced by artisans in the Småland region. The first annual Ikea catalogue was issued in 1951.

When Ikea began retailing furniture at factory prices by mail order in the early 1950s, the established furniture trade saw this move as disruptive to their business. Ikea was not permitted to exhibit in the major furniture fair in Stockholm for decades, and suppliers were encouraged to cease working with Ikea. Kamprad was not deterred. In the mid-to-late-1950s, he commissioned Gillis Lundgren—an Ikea employee—along with Danish designers Bengt Ruda and Erik Wørts, to create new Ikea furniture lines grounded in the modernist concepts of affordability, modularity, interchangeable parts, flat-packing, and self-assembly. The first Ikea showroom opened in Älmhult in 1958. The Tore Drawers (1958), Regal Bookshelf (1959), and Thonet-like Ölga Chair (1961) were among of the company’s first successes in modern furniture design. 

Ikea’s program for inexpensive, mass produced furnishings was greatly facilitated by the development of new materials in the 1960s, especially particleboard and plastics. When problems with Swedish suppliers came to a head, Ikea moved production to Denmark and Poland. Still, sales volumes steadily grew, and Ikea opened more showrooms. In 1963, Ikea opened its first store outside of Sweden, in Norway, followed in 1969 by a location in Denmark. In the 1970s, Ikea expanded to Switzerland, Germany, Australia, Canada, Austria, and the Netherlands. Also in the 1970s, Ikea was one of the first furniture companies to introduce self-service storage shopping for customers and computer systems for distribution management. In 1986, Ingvar Kamprad retired from executive management, and Ikea was divided into three separate entities: Inter Ikea Group, Ingka Group, and Ikano Group. In 1998, Ikea opened its first store in China.

Over the decades, Ikea has worked with myriad designers, both inside and outside Sweden. Iconic designs produced by Ikea include the wooden MTP Shelving System (1963) by Marian Grabinski; the space age Telegono Lamp (1970) by Vico Magistretti (originally designed for Artemide); the convertible Tajt Chair (1973) by Gillis Lundgren; the molded plastic Skopa Chair (1974) by Olle Gjerlöv-Knudsen and Torben Lind; the bentwood Poäng Chair & Ottoman (1977) by Noboru Nakamura; the enduring Billy Shelving System (1978) by Gillis Lundgren; the pop, plastic Mammut Child’s Chair & Table (1993) by Morten Kjelstrup and Allan Østgaard; the vibrant and tectonic Vilbert Chair (1993) in MDF by Verner Panton; and the biomorphic, rattan Storvik Lounge Chair (2002) by Carl Öjerstam. Notably, Ikea developed a number of highly successful designs with Danish design Niels Gammelgaard, like the Folke Chair (1977), Ted Net Chair (1978), Järpen Chair (1980), Moment Sofa (1983), Moment Table (1985), Guide Shelf (1985), Oti Chair (1986), Natura Storage (1990), and Trofast Toy Storage (1994).

Today, Ikea has more than 300 showrooms in nearly 30 countries and has built an incomparable international identity. Yearly worldwide sales have reached over 28 billion. The various Ikea companies and foundations are overseen by Ingka Holding B.V., and Ingvar Kamprad is senior advisor to the board. The designs produced by the company remain dedicated to “simplicity is a virtue,” while increasingly exploring the possibility of eco-friendly mass production methods.