>it made a modern range of aesthetics available to the masses

It made lack-of-aesthetics available to the masses: the same monopoly pre-selected designs for everybody, saturating every home.

Of course it is not to everyone's taste, but Ikea definitely has an aesthetics. A Lack coffee table or a Poang chair are instantly recognizable.

	▲	coldtea 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>but Ikea definitely has an aesthetics. It has a recognizable design language. Doesn't mean it has aesthetic merit (which was my point). The design language is derivative mix (copies of decades old scandinavian originals, adopting of this or that famous design language like mid-century modern, globalized minimal viable design), basically substituting a ready-made corporate taste for the buyer's own - the very opposite of aesthetics. If IKEA has an "aesthetic" it's in the trivial sense that everything designed has one, the same way a fast food meal is a culinary artifact as every other prepared meal is, doesn't mean it has culinary (or even nutritional) value.