There is a furniture shop in the Bronx that has always baffled me.

But, recently? I had a revelation.

I was baffled because the stuff in their window is so showy and colorful. It’s just not what I’ve been taught to think of as “good design.”

But m, then, I stepped back and considered their prices, the build quality of the furniture— and in that light it’s not that different than IKEA.

In terms of price or functionality or materials.

It just has a very different design agenda.

@futurebird

there are definitely other companies trying to be IKEA but with their air of being for a higher class than those filthy poor IKEA customers.

This stuff isn’t *my* style at all but I decided to reevaluate my initial impression that it was nonsensical and impractical.

As a western mass producer, IKEA often copies western designer items in wood laminate and plastic. Since I understand what they are trying to do it can sort of make sense— but, I have never seen what *this^ furniture is trying to copy. I am missing the context.

Both places make furniture for middle class people— both are aspirational in their own strange way.

@futurebird Uh, I may be misreading you, but IKEA *is* western.

@datarama

Yes IKEA copies western designer items because they are a western furniture mass producer. And the stuff in the the Bronx imports shop is also mass produced copies but of … something where I have not encountered the “real” version —

@futurebird Right, then I just misunderstood what you meant.

(A while ago, I pondered that "Nordic cyberpunk dystopia" would probably visually look like "The entire world was designed by IKEA".)

@datarama
Do not utter such horrors …for by describing them, by naming them, we may speak them into being.

@MisuseCase real linoleum is plastic-free https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linoleum @futurebird

@NatureMC @MisuseCase @futurebird
Marmoleum...

@futurebird One of the weirdest things about IKEA is that they have exactly two modes of product quality:

- Complete and utter rubbish that will disintegrate if you look at it from a wrong angle.
- Functionally indestructible and will be used as the favoured perching spot of a post-apocalyptic nuclear cockroach in 800 years.

And also these are completely decoupled from price.

@datarama @futurebird Yes! I have some old (maybe 25 years old) Billy bookshelves that are so strong I could knock out a rhino with them. And I bought a Kallax the other day that an ant could lift up and carry off.