Bauhaus × IKEA traces a direct ideological line between two of the 20th century's most consequential design forces — asking not only how they transformed daily life, but what responsibility that transformation now carries in an era of climate crisis and overconsumption.
About This Book
In 1919, the Bauhaus set out to democratise design through mass manufacturing. A decade after its closure in 1933, IKEA would take that founding principle — design for everyone — and build a global consumer empire around it. This edited volume brings together essays and photography to examine what that lineage has produced: a profound reshaping of how societies relate to designed objects, and a model of production whose environmental and cultural costs now demand scrutiny. Spanning history, politics, pedagogy, art, and society, Bauhaus × IKEA refuses easy celebration, instead engaging critically with modernist design's most enduring and contested legacy. Essential reading for designers, historians, and anyone reckoning with the ethics of mass production.
Key Features
- 136 pages of critical essays and curated photography examining modernist design history and its contemporary consequences
- Contributors include Claudia Perren, Axel Kufus, Stefanie Bürkle, Rebecca Carrai, Christof Mayer, Andrew Benjamin, and Adam Jasper; edited by Thea Brejzek, Rochus Urban Hinkel, and Lawrence Wallen
- Published by Uro Publications, 2018
What You'll Discover
- How the Bauhaus ideal of democratising design through mass manufacturing became the direct theoretical foundation for IKEA's global business model
- The tension between modernism's emancipatory ambitions and the environmental wreckage produced by the consumer-driven manufacturing models it set in motion
- How design pedagogy, from the Bauhaus workshop to contemporary design education, continues to be shaped by these two institutions
- Critical perspectives on design's role across politics, art, and society — and what a reckoning with this legacy might look like today
About the Author
Dr Thea Brejzek is Professor of Spatial Theory in the Architecture School at the University of Technology Sydney, a member of the scientific advisory board of the Bauhaus Dessau, and co-director of the IKEA×UTS Future Living Lab. Rochus Urban Hinkel is Associate Professor in Architecture and Design at the Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne, and has held professorships in artistic design, interior architecture, and furniture design across institutions in Europe and Australia. Dr Lawrence Wallen is Professor in the Architecture Department at the University of Technology Sydney and was previously Professor of Scenography at the Zurich University of the Arts, co-directing the IKEA×UTS Future Living Lab alongside Brejzek.
Specifications
- Format: Softcover
- Pages: 136
- Dimensions: 297 × 210 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781922601209
- Publisher: Uro Publications
- Publication Date: 2018
Perfect For: Architects, designers, and design historians interested in modernism's political and environmental legacy; educators and students in design theory and history; readers engaging critically with consumption, mass production, and the ethics of design.