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The Neo-Primitives or the IKEA2 Generation

Scene 1: Imagine a bushman in the Kalahari desert looking for truffles. Almost naked under the sweltering heat he is sniffing the ground near the roots of secular trees. Bushmen are known to be the only humans able to catch the faint smell of truffles hidden under the tree’s roots. Two hours he has already been searching, in vain. Desperate, he pulls out his GPS navigation device to doublecheck he is sniffing in the right location.

A bushman of the Khoisan people using a GSP satellite navigation finder? Crazy, maybe.

Scene 2: Imagine a young man temporarily living alone in his rich parents penthouse atop Avenue Foch in Paris. As the parents are off to a month of vacationing on the Cote d’Azur, the young man calls the Commissaire-Priseur, the auctioneer, to remove the entire priceless 18th century decoration of the apartment. Carved period wall panelings, tapestries, Louis XV furniture, museum quality paintings and more. He wants all the grotty old stuff out and the entire apartment modernized Ikea-style to surprise his parents upon their return.

Crazy? No, a true event which happened several years ago..

Scene 3: A fourth floor condo in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A young lady’s one bedroom abode. The living room is dominated by a huge plasma screen flanked by pyramid shaped surround sound speakers. In the corner a computer table with an old Mac and a bulky monitor to demonstrate that the owner had already been computer literate in the late stone age. She is lying prone on a large sofabed, violently hacking her notebook, watched by a decrepit teddy bear. Next to her a cup and a thermos full of tea. The carpet is littered with DVD discs, cables, t-shirts, some old computer mags, a pack of crackers and a half empty plate of pasta in tomato sauce. In another corner a scratched DJ’s podium with a double record player and a mixing console. Near the entrance door a bicycle: a gleaming, expensive mountain bike, most useful in flat Philly, far too beautiful and valuable to park it in the garage. Pictures? A poster of Audrey Hepburn on a scooter and a calendar.

Scene 4: A young man’s apartment in Berlin. Beautiful heirloom antiques mixed with flea market and yard sale furniture. No big screen but a keyboard, two old synthis, two guitars, a rack of semi-professional electronics. A big old custom built PC with its monitor for guests; the owner himself working on a notebook personalized with pictures and stickers. The apartment is located in an old building sporting parquet floors, striped vinyl wallpaper and rich plaster moldings. No bike, though.

How do you manage to combine your precious antiques and the neoclassical elegance of the rooms with flea market junk, electronics and musical paraphernalia?

It is difficult to explain this to friends, colleagues, especially the younger ones, says the owner who is in his late thirties. Most people don’t understand. Take out the whimsical moldings, they say. Strip the awful grandpa wallpaper. They attempt to sit on the arm of an old armchair. Stop it, I am yelling. This chair is almost 300 years old, you can’t sit on it like that. They give me a bland look, not understanding why three centuries make any difference. If you can’t use a chair like that get rid of it and buy a decent one.

You know, he explains to me, today’s young people are accustomed to Ikea style furniture. That is what their parents bought when they married, and that is what they are now buying for themselves. I call them the Ikea2 generation. They don’t know anything else. When they see something different they are surprised and disgusted. For them there is no difference between flea market and museum pieces. All they see is strange for them, funny at best, at worst awful.

Most of them have always lived in rental homes painted white. This is the only wall color they know; anything else contradicts their set of esthetics. For them furnishings should be strictly functional and not disturb the array of technical gear which displays the owner’s abilities and individuality.

What is the background of these young people?

Sometimes it is difficult to tell, he says. Most of them are of middle class origin. Their parents or at least their grandparents must have had some level of culture. It is not that they seem to be rebelling against their parents’ style. They found their own style without even thinking twice – technology. A home is a place where you can enjoy all your technology. Somewhere there you can also sleep and eat a microwaved pizza. A rack for clothing; a shelf for T-shirts, sweaters and underwear. Two backpacks for travel, a rolled-up rubber sheet to sleep on; that is all they need in life.

Cleanliness? Don’t ask. Some are clean but most don’t care, boys and girls alike. See the grime in their bathrooms and kitchens and you stop wondering how they can happily sleep on airport and rail station floors, in rental cars or railroad aisles. Dirt strengthens the immune system, they will deflect any question.

To me these guys are primitive in their lifestyle although they are usually well educated and professionally competent. Their neo-primitivism does not result from lack of money or opportunity. Their style is an outgrowth of affluence, a self-imposed limitation to the very basics in the face of a highly refined civilization surrounding them which they do not understand and of which they dig only the hedonistic technology aspects. Their’s is a world of technical toys grown out of the teenage subculture of earlier decades. But this is no subculture anymore. It is the culture of the new generation, and its impact on industry and trade in home furnishings is visible.

They cultivate a new kind of collectibles. Vintage computers, a row of old cinema seats, a 1950s fridge painted pink, Indonesian hardwood furniture faked old, Moroccan leather poufs stuffed with styrofoam pellets, a hubble-bubble nargileh water pipe, souvenirs from early Internet meetings. They prefer a racy printed poster to an oil painting, and their most valuable keepsake is perhaps a genuine Concorde flight luggage tag.

—— John Wantock