Ikea Just Gave an Iconic Design Piece the Reissue It Deserved

A colorful and highly collectible shelving unit from Ikea’s 1985 catalog rejoins the fold.

By Jack Seemer

Published December 11, 2024

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Updated December 11, 2024

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Collectors don’t typically focus on fast-furniture brands, however, there is one big, blue exception: Ikea.

Since the 1940s, the king of flat-pack home goods has amassed a wonderfully wacky archive of colorful chairs, tables, lamps and home goods, much of which now sells for big money on the resale market.

Case in point: the Guide shelving unit by Danish designer Niels Gammelgaard.

Quickly customizable

Defined by its steel-wire frame and multi-colored shelves, Guide debuted in 1985 with a price tag of €65. Today? It sells for nearly $3,000 on the resale market.

Here’s the thing: that price may not hold for long.

As revealed by Gammelgaard himself on Instagram, the Guide is on its way back to Ikea’s catalog, albeit under a new name: Byakorre.

Like the original, the reissued version of the shelving unit features reversible shelves that can toggle between white and gray.

The shelves are equally customizable, if not more so: the edges vary are red, blue, yellow or green on one side and white on the other, allowing users to not only choose which palette to display but quickly swap if they so wish.

“I love the idea that you can switch the mood in your home through design.”

“I love the idea that you can switch the mood in your home through design,” Gammelgaard said on social media.

Inspired by shopping carts

According to Ikea, the Guide took after another Gammelgaard design, the Moment sofa, and both products were inspired by the form of 1980s-era shopping carts. It only lasted four years before Ikea retired it to the archive.

designer Niels Gammelgaard standing with a shelving unit — A vintage photo of Gammelgaard standing with the Guide. It shares a similar wire framework as the Ikea Moment sofa, also designed by Gammelgaard.

Now, more than 35 years later, customers can once again purchase the whimsical shelving unit, and they don’t have to spend $3,000 in order to add one to their homes.

The Byakorre is already available in Sweden, with a widespread release scheduled for February 2025 as part of the company’s Nytillverkad collection reimagining other archival products.

Pricing in the US has yet to be confirmed but the unit goes for 1,495 Swedish krona (about $136) overseas. That’s more like it.