Knut Hagberg and
Marianne Hagberg

Siblings Knut and Marianne grew up in Hässleholm, Sweden, just a few miles from IKEA in Älmhult. Knut, five years older than his sister, first trained as a chef and worked in kitchens for a few years before he and Marianne began studying furniture design and interior decoration in Copenhagen in 1973, graduating in 1978. One year later they were hired by IKEA. Marianne Hagberg remembered their first assignment was to “do great things”.

As traditionally trained designers, they faced a learning curve when it came to creating simple, self-assembly furniture. However, they adapted quickly and also had a thing or two to teach their new coworkers at IKEA.

The duo have always worked as a team, starting by drawing by hand on big white paper in 1:1 scale. When they were done drawing, they’d go to the prototype shop and, together with the hands-on engineers, build models and test, evaluate and make alterations before moving on to the production stage. Both had a strong interest in the industrial side of design, and many ideas were born on the factory floor as they worked with suppliers to develop new solutions to produce even better results.

The 1980s was a time for inspiration and travel. Marianne and Knut went to China, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and Malaysia to develop new products. During one visit to a supplier that manufactured steel furniture, Knut and Marianne noticed they had a lot of leftover scrap materials. They decided to use the leftover metal to create a set of simple cylindrical candle holders, launched at IKEA in 1981 under the fitting name CYLINDER. Over the following decades, Knut and Marianne would go on to design hundreds of products that became favourites in many homes around the world.

The Hagberg siblings have always stressed teamwork as the secret to their success. Such as when they collaborated with IKEA prototype engineers on the use of the innovative wedge dowel, a wooden piece that can replace metal fittings in construction and assembly. Knut and Marianne used it, for example, for the table LISABO, which received the Red Dot Award. Some IKEA people were slow to implement the new technique, but Marianne and Knut saw its potential. “What a revolution – no metal fittings, in fact no visible fittings at all. Simpler and more attractive.”

In 2020, after a career spanning 41 years and more than 2,000 products, Marianne and Knut put down their pencils. The following year the duo was celebrated in a retrospective exhibition at IKEA Museum. Many of their designs live on in the IKEA range and in people’s homes. For example, their candle holders CYLINDER have been re-launched several times since 1981. In 2023 they came back again, now called TUVKORNELL in the Nytillverkad collection.

The siblings do have some advice for future generations of IKEA designers. Firstly, that there are no shortcuts. Secondly, always follow the five points of Democratic Design and think about how you can make everyday living a little better.

“You can always make something better; make it work better, produce it a bit cheaper, make it look better,” said Marianne. Knut added, “You must also be very curious and always have the customer in focus, because if you don’t, there’s no reason to make it.”