A revolution in Israeli furniture, design awareness, a pleasanter living environment - these are the words former Ikea Israel CEO Dov Rochman used 10 years ago after the Swedish furniture giant launched its first Israeli branch. Yet even Rochman did not predict how quickly and forcefully local customers would embrace the local furniture giant.
Its catalogue is known as "the local Bible." The Netanya branch became an alternative to the shopping mall for family outings. Religious singles used it as a neutral space for first dates. Some people came just to eat Swedish hot dogs and meatballs in the cafeteria.
And if this isn't enough to show the extent to which it has become a part of the Israeli consciousness, just peek into the wedding album of Asaf and Noa Miron, who staged their photographs at the Netanya store a few months before it burned to the ground.
Noa, 27, is an accountant; Asaf, 26, works in hi-tech and is studying for his bachelor's in computer science. As opposed to staging their photo shoot at the beach or on a green, flower-filled lawn, the young couple chose the Ikea parking lot, against the backdrop of the blue cube-shaped store. They lay on beds in the bedroom section, sat on chairs in the living room and kitchen displays, and strode hand-in-hand through the storeroom of full of flat boxes of furniture to be assembled.
Romantic? Weird? Cool? Artificial? It depends whom you ask.
"The idea came up a week before the wedding," Asaf Miron says. "We were getting married at Yehoshua House, which is close to Ikea. One day we went there and passed [the store] in Netanya, and Noa had the idea of being photographed there. We thought it was an original idea; later we heard other people had done it, too. It was really fun, an experience to be photographed there, to play with the things."
Can you imagine yourself showing the pictures to your children and grandchildren, and saying here are Mom and Dad at Ikea?
"The pictures turned out very well, I think it will be nice to show them to people, Ikea or no Ikea."
Do you have Ikea products at home?
"Yes. We shop there, I don't know if we have a lot, but it's more than a little. We live in Kfar Sava and the Netanya branch was very close. Now the branch in Rishon is a little farther away, but we've been there once so far."
More design awarenessTen years after Ikea opened in Israel, it may be said that CEO Rochman's prophesy has come true. "Ikea really did bring about a revolution in Israel," says Bracha Kunda, head of the interior design department at the Holon Institute of Technology. "Ikea made interior design more accessible to the broader public, and brought it down to the people, but not in a bad sense. It increased design awareness in Israel and made it more part of mass culture. Today you can have good design without spending a lot of money."
Why did it catch on? It's not only the price.
"Israelis are very practical and functional. The question is whether something does the job and whether I can afford it. It doesn't bother most people that everyone has the same things, that they are not unique. Ikea's approach is to give great solutions. You can furnish an entire apartment in one trip and buy functional products that are user-friendly and attractive."
"To a certain extent you also don't need decorators. You go there and everything is set up so you can see how it will look. Before, people would buy each item separately; you couldn't see the larger picture, the end result. When your average person looks at a sofa, it's hard for him to imagine it at home. He chooses a sofa that becomes a shrine in the middle of the living room and not something that goes with the rest of the furniture."
Carmela Jacoby Wellek, head of the interior design department at the College of Management in Rishon Letzion, also believes Ikea sparked a revolution. "The biggest change since Ikea entered the Israeli market is the accessibility of good taste to all. It's not that there weren't stores like Tollman's or Habitat, but they weren't accessible, and I'm not just referring to the prices. Design came off as something for a different economic class. Today, everyone goes to Ikea, whether to buy napkins, children's furniture or just a present.
"The entire design process has been democratized: Once design was conceived as something only for the wealthy, but now there is complete democracy and good taste is not only the province of designers. You can afford to go there, shop, and then throw away what you bought and say, I want something else; it's not for a lifetime."
In general, do homes look better?
"Yes. I think about homes when I was young, when Indian tablecloths and transparent runners dominated, furniture from East Jerusalem and the bad style from nearby stores. It's true that things are more uniform; you see Ikea's Billy bookcases everywhere. But there are cleaner lines. You can often see this in young people's apartments, which all look good. It's important to them."
Is there a downside to having Ikea in Israel?
"It is a giant economic power, which enters each country with a highly disturbing and complete indifference to the locale. You could see this when the Netanya branch burned down; there was no solidarity with the place, it was as if the Coca-Cola plant had burned. You felt that an icon had been destroyed, not a workplace with people. When you're so indifferent to a place, there is something extremely disturbing about it.
"I haven't heard about them cooperating with universities in Israel. In this regard Ikea has missed out on an opportunity to be part of the contemporary dialogue by advancing the local design community, the local urban community, and taking the steps of a responsible corporation."
But they sell without doing this. Why should they? Would they sell more?
"It goes back to the burned icon. Cynicism doesn't work anymore. It will take time but it will work against them. People are smarter now. It will take another 10 years, but in the end it will happen."
Ikea is influential not only in Israel, of course. It has won a respected place in critical global architectural and design discourse, and scholars have already designated the company as heir to the Bauhaus tradition. The Swedish company is based on a model of mass production at popular prices - an idea that arose first at the German school in the 1920s.
Noga Friedlander, director of marketing at the Tollman's chain, known for both design and high prices, agrees.
"Ikea has brought the broader Israeli public closer to design in general and to an understanding of design. It instructs the audience, gives them products starting at a very young age, and thus teaches them to consume design."
How is this expressed at Tollman's?
"Ikea educates younger people to like and demand design, so that when they are a bit older they are better prepared to understand differences and want better things. It makes them aware of design and its advantages, and afterward people are more prepared to pay more to have the real thing.
"The biggest disadvantage of Ikea is quality. But, again, they bring a relatively high level of design to a young audience, which afterward seeks this from higher quality companies. With time, you have more money and you are prepared to spend it to get extra value. Afterward, the audience for design is much larger."
Alex Padua, head of Shenkar's industrial design department, has a different explanation for Ikea's success in Israel. Padua believes it is in the shopping experience, which is similar to what customers are accustomed to at malls.
"In a world of malls, you are surrounded by everything you need in one place," he says.
Padua agrees Ikea has educated the Israeli consumer about better design, but emphasizes that it happened without anyone intending to do so.
"Israelis did not decide to improve their home decorating culture or their relations with their homes. They wanted European design at affordable prices; what they didn't know was that they would be buying original items designed only for Ikea," he says.
Padua mentions with a smile what he calls "the opportunity to be a man."
"The Israeli enters Ikea for the first time and sees that it is good, that it delights the eye and doesn't hurt his wallet. Then he gets to the checkout counter with everything and another aspect appears. Not only did you buy the closet or chest of drawers and collect all the boxes yourself, now you have to put them together. The woman can look on and say he's doing his job; you get extra credit for this."
