E-Mail This Article to a Friend Don’t get the wrong IKEA The build-it-yourself Swedish-furniture giant moves into Massachusetts BY CHRIS WANGLER

I was four years old when I attended my first IKEA grand opening in Edmonton, Alberta. It was the third IKEA store in Canada, moored in a strip mall between a Chinese restaurant and a cheap hair salon. To coincide with the first Superman film, there was a contest for kids to dress up as The Man of Steel. Since that had been my Halloween costume the year before, I entered the fray; my chest, bolstered by hockey pads, has never looked bigger or broader. I came in second, winning neither the $100 gift certificate nor the movie tickets, and since that day I have loved and hated IKEA in equal measure. Is it a kinder, gentler chain, worthy of respect as it balloons to elephantine proportions, or is it just another big, bad box like you-know-who, cutting down Truffula trees left, right, and center to make its Norrebo and Levsik lines?

I hoped a sneak peek at the hugely anticipated store in Stoughton, set to open on Wednesday, November 9, would help me make up my mind.

Rarely does a ribbon-cutting seem newsworthy, but IKEA is an exception — a mammoth "destination" store with a sizable, even cultish following of low-budget/high-concept customers. And given the disproportionate number of students and recent college graduates in the Boston area, many of whom visit the stores in New Jersey or New Haven, this opening promises to be a retail grand guignol. Make friends with the guy down the hall with the SUV — you will be road-tripping to Stoughton soon.

My tour guide, store manager Frank Briel, says IKEA Stoughton is prepared for 20,000 customers on opening day — quite a crowd for a store with only 1295 parking spots. "We’ve done this before," he says churlishly, adding that the store will enjoy the full cooperation of police, fire, and even parking officials.

This two-story IKEA, in case you’re unfamiliar with the general concept, covers an area roughly the size of four football fields and will feature the famous IKEA restaurant, with its Swedish meatballs and lingonberry sauce. The bathrooms, I should add, are among the best in retail.

In keeping with Swedish tradition, a ceremonial log will be sawed at the opening, and prizes will be awarded for the first in line — a practice that has occasionally turned ugly overseas. A riot broke out at a North London opening in February, forcing the store to close 30 minutes later. And when the first IKEA opened in Saudi Arabia last September, two men were trampled to death and 16 shoppers were injured when 8000 people surged forward to claim $150 vouchers.

It’s remarkable that so many would rush into such a controlled retail space, known for its circuitous forced pathway, called "the long natural way" by staff. Loathed by many customers, this yellow-brick road is meant to expose its victims to the full IKEA product range in all its myriad, trinket-y glory. It starts in the low-ceilinged room-settings, then continues downstairs to the trippy Marketplace, and ends in the cavernous warehouse, reminiscent of the caves of Moria from The Fellowship of the Ring.

"You’re not just going there to buy furniture," says Elen Lewis, author of Great IKEA! A Brand for All the People. "You’re going there to experience another country’s values and philosophy."

INGVAR THE SPENDTHRIFT

The architect of that concept is Ingvar Kamprad, 79, the company’s legendary founder and a national hero in Sweden. Hailing from the dinky little town of Älmhult, and now living in seclusion in Switzerland, the notorious spendthrift transformed the idea of flat-packed, cash-and-carry furnishings into the world’s only global furniture juggernaut.

By having customers haul and assemble their own furnishings, Kamprad sidestepped delivery and storage costs, then passed the savings on to customers. But perhaps his master stroke was to marry his frugal, cost-minimizing retail strategy with the modern Scandinavian aesthetic, resulting in what he called "democratic design."

Oddly enough, IKEA flopped when it opened its first US store in 1986. But by making concessions to American expectations (softer couches, American bed sizes, good thread counts) it gradually won over low-budget consumers attracted to its upmarket design, with its subtle implications of class mobility. That they were willing to bruise their toes lifting those deceptively heavy boxes speaks to the brand’s participatory appeal (which Lewis claims can reinforce traditional gender roles, for better or for worse). It’s all part and parcel of IKEA’s goal "to create a better everyday life for the many people."

Not everyone, of course, believes this Euro-jumbo or will flock to the new store to experience Kamprad’s oddly capitalistic incarnation of Scandinavian social democracy. Over the years, IKEA has fought hard to overcome opposition in the Boston market.

In 1996, Wellesley rejected plans for a store near the intersection of routes 9 and 128. The first store actually planned for the area, however, was in Somerville at Assembly Square. Citing traffic and pollution concerns, the Mystic View Task Force and another group filed suit in 2004, freezing the company’s plans until the case goes to trial. While no date has been set, the company still plans to build in Somerville. In the interim, IKEA turned to Stoughton, which approved plans and issued permits in about a year, happy to add 500 jobs and collect $1 million in taxes per annum.