TheJakartaPost

Please Update your browser

Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.

Jakarta Post

Looking into the heart of Ikea

When it all began : An old photograph of little Ingvar Kamprad and Christmas cards he sold to his neighbors are preserved at IKEA Museum

Indah Setiawati (The Jakarta Post)
Almhult, Sweden
Thu, October 9, 2014

Share This Article

Change Size

Looking into the heart of Ikea

W

span class="inline inline-center">When it all began : An old photograph of little Ingvar Kamprad and Christmas cards he sold to his neighbors are preserved at IKEA Museum.

The small town of Almhult in Sweden may not ring a bell for tourists browsing for hot European destinations until home furnishing giant Ikea pops up in the Google search engine.

Known as IKEA town, Almhult has everything there is to tell about the company.

Recently, a group of Indonesian journalists were given the opportunity to visit various departments of the company and learn about various aspects of the business. With the office buildings in close proximity to each other, our trips usually began with a nice stroll on a breezy morning and several short journeys by bus.  

One of the first captivating places visited was the IKEA Museum, located just a stone'€™s throw from Ikea Hotel and Restaurant Vardshuset. Juni Wannberg, an information coordinator focusing on history and company culture, took us on a journey into the past with the story about the humble beginnings of IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad.

Kamprad '€” one of the world'€™s richest people alive '€” started to sell boxes of matches to his neighbors at the age of 5 during hard times in Sweden. Later, the boy, who was born on March 30, 1926 and raised on a farm called Elmtaryd near Agunnaryd village, cycled around the neighborhood selling fish that he had caught, Christmas cards, wall hangings, seeds and even fountain pens from Paris.

At the age of 17, Kamprad established IKEA. In the name IKEA, I stands for Ingvar, K for Kamprad, E for Elmtaryd and A for Agunnaryd.

Remains of the small items he sold in his youth were on display in a glass box in the museum. Wannberg said young Kamprad also hired a milk van that went to his farm to deliver the packages to his customers.

He put the packages on a wooden bench, but soon learned that they were not safe from the rain, and so he installed a small '€œstorage room'€ to protect the packages against bad weather.

'€œThat storage was probably the forerunner of our distribution centers today,'€ Wannberg said while holding a replica of the storage.

The IKEA distribution center in Almhult is the size of 35 soccer fields. The huge modern building that uses automatic machinery distributes products from more than 1,000 suppliers from all over the world to 37 stores in five Scandinavian countries.  

Wannberg also guided the group to some items that marked the milestones of the company, including a small table with three legs called Lovet, which became the company'€™s very first self-assembly product introduced in 1956, and the first IKEA catalogue, which was printed in 1951.

Some of the impressive features included the exhibition of living rooms that boasted vintage furniture and artifacts dating back to the 1940s. They literally gave vivid images of the development of trends and designs of the company'€™s products throughout the times.

Wannberg said the museum management was still looking for certain vintage items and was willing to buy them from customers who possessed them.     

A visit to a local house provided a sneak peak of the Swede'€™s approach to contemporary room styling, while another visit to an old heritage house gave a revelation of the influence of Scandinavian designs on IKEA products.

Carina Caifeldt, a mother of three, welcomed us into her beautiful house, located not far from the IKEA office buildings. She said the house had been renovated several times to give it the current size of 140 square meters, which was double its original size.

Picture perfect:: Creative glass jars decoration in Carina Caifeldt'€™s kitchen window in Almhult, Sweden.
Picture perfect:  Creative glass jars decoration in Carina Caifeldt'€™s kitchen window in Almhult, Sweden.

Although she is apparently a fan of IKEA products, Caifeldt successfully combines them with classic family belongings, a few personal touches and creative placement. She smartly covered an ugly wall with a brick patterned curtain and placed favorite small decorative objects like candles, old pictures and animal miniatures in her living room.

She enthusiastically shared how she had personalized her house with her creative homemade craftwork. She said she loved to visit a nearby flea market to hunt for something cute and change the look with her favorite colors.

'€œI like spray paint because you can change so many things [with it]. You may like the shape of the objects, but you may not like the color,'€ Caifeldt said, adding that her love of fabrics also gave her many ideas on how to change the mood of a room by simply changing the cushion covers.

One of the concept designs that she embraced from IKEA was making use of unused space as a smart storage area. She installed a row of white, long shelves in the white master bedroom, which gave her more space to put her belongings. She also transformed a small area behind the stairs to the basement into a sewing corner.

On the following day, we were immersed in a completely different ambiance of room styling when we dined at a big vintage house in Agunnaryd village. Built in 1817, the two-story house is nestled in front of a green field where horses run free next to a lake.

In between glasses of wine, acting host Anders Vigren and Marianne Joensson, a director at the Heurlin Foundation, which manages the house, told the life story of the owner of the house, the Heurlin family.

We also toured the house, which was full of fantastic antique wooden furniture, including different types of secretary cabinets, a classic Scandinavian multipurpose sofa bed, a round table that could be equally separated into two, and a child'€™s bed that could be extended in length.

The tour revealed the influence of the smart Scandinavian design ideas that still run through some IKEA products.    - Photos by JP/Indah Setiawati

{

Your Opinion Matters

Share your experiences, suggestions, and any issues you've encountered on The Jakarta Post. We're here to listen.

Enter at least 30 characters
0 / 30

Thank You

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We appreciate your feedback.