SPAIN – IKEA arrived in Spain 20 years ago and to celebrate it, the company open for the first time in the country two pop up shops in the center of Madrid and Barcelona, the two cities where it first settled in the peninsula in 1996.

The “little shops” (the name given to these two ephemeral stores) will be open from 21 to 30 October (Madrid) and from 21 to 29 October (Barcelona) from 10:00 to 21:00. The Madrid store will be located in the area of El Rastro, in Calle San Cayetano 5, and the Barcelona store will be on the street Comerç 17, in the area of El Born. Both stores will feature an assortment of exclusive products, a tribute to the merger between Sweden and Spain during these 20 years, which will not be available in any other IKEA store in Spain.

During the ten days of opening, the stores will organize a workshop program on customizing furniture and home accessories. Some of the workshops will take place in Madrid will include “Furniture decor with geometric figures” or “Aging furniture” in order to will learn simple and inexpensive ways to give another aspect to home furnishings. Meanwhile in Barcelona, workshops on IKEA product customization, such as the RISATORP basket or the BEKVÄM stool will take place.

Upon completion of 20 years of IKEA in Spain, the chain operates 16 stores that have received more than 400 million visits. Also as part of the celebration, the Complutense University presented the study “How have Spanish households changed? An analysis of the 1995-2015 period”, which reveals that IKEA has played an important role in the transformation of Spanish households in the last two decades facilitating youth empowerment, helping Spanish homes to be more comfortable and practical, teaching to have more enjoyable households and promoting an interest in decoration among Spaniards.