DOKUMENT was created by design siblings Marianne Hagberg and Knut Hagberg at IKEA.
In the early 1980s, they often travelled around Asia to find inspiration for new products. At a factory in South Korea, they saw how speaker protectors for car stereos were made out of expanded metal. Marianne once said in an interview:
“We thought expanded metal was an amazing material. It lets light through. And it hides nothing – yet actually hides something. We also found out that if you take one square metre of sheet metal and stretch it in the machine, you can get a piece of expanded metal of twice the area, so two square metres. I immediately realised this was the best possible material for product development, as you get twice as much for your money! That’s how we started working on a series of office accessories made out of expanded metal. First we sketched a few basic samples, and then we started on the whole office series. And it was a big seller!”
The DOKUMENT series joined the range in January 1988 and was in the catalogue for more than 20 years.
