The Swedish designer, who inspired Ikea’s flat-pack concept’s died at 86.
Gillis Lundgren was the fourth employee hired in 1953, when the furniture giant was just a small mail-order business in the town of Almhuklt, Sweden.
Working closely with founder Ingvar Kamprad, Lundgren watched the company grow with over 100,000 workers.
He designed many of Ikea products, including the popular ”Billy” bookcase in the late 1970s.
Lundgren’s also credited with inspiring the flat-pack, self-assembly concept when, after a photo shoot for the Ikea catalogue in the 1950’s, he removed the legs of a table so it could fit into a car.
Founder Kamprad says Ikea was not the first to sell self-assembly furniture, but the first systematically to develop the idea commercially.
Gillis Lundgren never fully retired, working as a consultant for Ikea into his 80s.