The BOHEM armchair was launched in the 1956 IKEA catalogue, and this was also the first time a designer was named. Gillis Lundgren had designed BOHEM using moulded plywood and steel tubing in the construction, quite unusual production and material options in traditional upholstered furniture production. The materials made it possible to experiment with a modern design expression. The frame was made at a mechanical workshop in Älmhult, and the seating unit at a joinery. The parts were then sent to a local upholstered furniture factory which completed the product, all at a very low price.
In the early IKEA catalogues, Ingvar Kamprad himself wrote most of the texts, and he described the BOHEM armchair as “superbly comfortable”. But talking about it many years later, he had changed his mind. Ingvar said “your arms went to sleep after sitting in it a while… it was an odd little armchair!”
