Let's Talk Royalty and... IKEA?

It's an exciting time to be in Stockholm, not only because it's summer and the weather is amazing, but because a once(ish)- in a lifetime even is taking place this Saturday. The royal family's oldest child, the Princess Victoria, is getting married! In three days, she will marry Daniel, a man whom the media has dubbed the "man of the people". He comes from a rural fishing family, and was the princess's personal fitness trainer. Their relationship has spanned seven years, and Saturday they will tie the knot!  For two weeks up until the ceremony, the royal family (and their many staff) have organized a citywide celebration with musical artists, cultural exhibitions and touristy stuff. Our hostel is literally right around the corner from the palace, on the island of Gamla Stan (lit. "Old Town") so we are smack in the middle of Love Stockholm 2010!

As a distinctly Swedish brand, IKEA was invited to set up a pavilion for the bash on Gamla Stan, almost directly across the street from our hostel. IKEA built a small mock palace and furnished it entirely with furniture and objects from their collection. Part advertisement, part fairly tale, with very little reality, the exhibit was pretty ridiculous.

The first room you enter is the library/study and is the first presentation of Swedish culture. The skis on the wall allude to Sweden's climate and geography, the shelves upon shelves of books celebrate Swedish literature.

If you look up behind me where I took the above photo, this large print of the royal family around the turn of the twentieth century looms above:

A special challenge to you all: can you identify the painting that the family is sitting in front of? The dog in the top right corner is the only clue, and I know I've seen the painting before but perhaps some of you with more nimble minds can help me.

The banquet room is pictured above, along with a pair of what seems to be reporters or talk show hosts being filmed talking about the IKEA palace. They seemed to be very interested in the flatware at the table, so they might have been representing a culinary or cooking design show. They spoke Swedish, so this is all conjecture.

The palace, as we moved through it, showed a strange mix of detail and simplicity. In some rooms, such as the banquet room, the walls were just white with some raw marker drawings of shields and molding. The table is richly decorated with dozens of flowers. In other rooms, such as the kitchen (shown below), the designers pay more attention to architectural integrity.

Look at those beautiful (fake) columns! (I wish it wasn't so hard to convey sarcasm through written word...)

I couldn't help wondering... what was I supposed to feel about the exhibit?  How was I supposed to see? As an American tourist, catching a glimpse of Swedish culture?  As a commoner in awe of the privileges of royal life? Or maybe IKEA wanted to create a place of escape by appealing to my sense of fantasy.

The recreation of the fairy tale The Princess and the Pea seemed to do this quite blatantly. Perhaps that's what was so unsettling about the entire exhibit: it was incomplete. It tried to take multiple routes and appeal to the so many different audiences that the result was disjointed and haphazard. I felt like I was being talked down to, and the receipts posted at the end of each room (to show how cheap all of the IKEA swag used in the room was) came off as really tacky. Overall, the exhibit quite literally cheapened the experience of the royal wedding and could have been more thoughtful and not so sloppy.