Abstract

IGG:   You have claimed that “Ikea builds societies”, countering the  motto that announces Ikea interiors as ‘the independent republic of your home. You argue that interiors are key to understanding contemporary social structures and can claim to have a political status, in opposition to those that privilege the city as the paradigmatic sphere for the construction of the social and the ultimate res-publica.

AJ: Yes, I don’t think that the paradigm of the city can account for the reality I am attempting to grasp. Even the dialectics urban/rural or urban/suburban are no longer valid. Individuals and groups are no longer shaped by cities or  landscapes, but mainly by the way they establish associations with a series of home-like interiors. We can only account for contemporary subjects and societies if we recognize how they are constructed in association with small architectural devices like living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, psychotherapy rooms, hotel beds, or bingo tables.