BILLY BARÖCK

“To me, the desire to create a design that is timeless is always slightly bewildering,” says Paulo de Vries. “Because what people expect from an object changes over time.” Taking Ikea’s Billy, the biggest-selling bookcase worldwide, as a case in point, Paulo has created a chipboard bookshelf for the baroque era. Instead of being functional and flexible, cabinets in Louis XIV’s time were meant to express their owner’s elevated status. This need to impress dramatically affected the appearance of furniture. ‘Billy Baröck’, ornately fashioned from IKEA’s cost-effective materials, represents the clash between two eras with widely different views on what a cupboard is.