A global favourite for Scandinavian design, here are six unique Ikea stores in the world to get your fix
Ikea is a global design juggernaut. Everyone from college students to professional designers has lingered longer than they needed to in the Swedish furniture giant's maze-like blue-and-yellow halls.
Its branded shopping bag has attained such iconic status that it's been copied on runways and even the subject of a collaboration with chichi Parisian department store Colette.
Perhaps as famous for its bags as for its familiar blue and yellow storefronts, we've rounded up six unique Ikea stores that are interesting destinations in themselves.
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1. Ikea Vienna, Austria
Designed to resemble Ikea's minimalist shelving units, architecture firm Querkraft Architekten is behind this seven-storey store in Vienna, Austria, which opened in April 2022.
The 60,000 sq ft store is neatly organised across the stacked 32-by-32-foot glass-walled pods although the building also contains a rooftop terrace, a café, a hostel on the upper two floors, and a collection of huge potted plants on each floor.
These plants are part of the architect's green initiatives where totalling 160 trees in all, to offer sources of both cooling and moisture for the building. Solar panels and hyperefficient heating and cooling were also installed.
Minimalist-looking escalators were incorporated to encourage guests to keep going upwards until they reach the rooftop terrace on the seventh floor which is open to the public.
See also: 6 ways to create a warm minimalist space
