Billy (shelving system)

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Billy shelf (106 cm high)

Billy is a shelving system from the Swedish furniture company IKEA . It was developed in 1978 by the Swedish designer Gillis Lundgren and since then (as of 2018) it has been sold 77 million times worldwide.

history

The shelf parts are made of plastic-coated or veneered chipboard . The edges are covered with plastic strips. The shelves are placed on metal supports, the holes in the side walls are 32 mm apart. The design of the shelf and the metal supports were changed in 2014. The shelves are available in several colors and surfaces and are 40 or 80 cm wide. They can be connected to one another and supplemented by additional elements (e.g. doors).

In 1979 the shelf, which was manufactured in the GDR at the time, was offered for the first time in widths of 90 and 60 cm and a height of 202 cm. After reunification , the shelf was no longer competitive and was initially removed from the range in September 1990, but was resumed after protests from customers. According to Peter Betzel , managing director of IKEA Germany since 2011 , the shelving system should continue to exist (2015 statement).

In 1992, the star had the shelf examined for the additive formaldehyde . Eight of 18 shelves exceeded the limit by up to four times. The result was the headline: "Sick by Billy". Ikea stopped selling for two and a half weeks until the cause of the problem was found in one of the manufacturing factories.

literature

  • Marc Brétillot: Billy le kit les 30 ans d'une icône du design populaire . Michel, Paris 2009, ISBN 978-2-226-18180-0 .
  • Petra Eisele: Do-it-yourself design. The IKEA shelves IVAR and BILLY . In: Zeithistorische Forschungen / Studies in Contemporary History . tape 3 , 2006, p. 439–448 ( zeithistorische-forschungen.de ).
  • Tom Ziora: Billy - 30 years old . Ed .: Nina Puri, IKEA Germany GmbH & Co. KG. Two thousand and one book 2000, Frankfurt am Main / Affoltern am Albis 2009, ISBN 978-3-86150-958-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rebekka Knoll: The popular shelf over time: "Sick by Billy": How the "deadly bookshelf" became an Ikea favorite . Hessische / Niedersächsische Allgemeine , April 18, 2018.
  2. ↑ The Billy Regal is dead - long live the Billy Regal! In: new-swedish-design.de. Retrieved March 23, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Simona Heuberger, Alexandra Weigand: Well thought out . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin . No. 16 , 2009 ( sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de [accessed on March 23, 2016]).
  4. ↑ Nina Luttmer: We are curious . Interview with Peter Betzel. In: Frankfurter Rundschau . January 11, 2015, p. 14th f .
  5. ↑ Patrick Junker: ÖKO-TEST Online. In: oekotest.de ( Memento from November 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive )