I remember reading somewhere that Bjork said Iceland's so small, you always stay on speaking terms with your ex'es, because you keep running into each other all the time. [That, or you leave the country, I guess?]
Maybe it's the same way with Sweden and designers. Everyone tries to stay on relatively genial terms with each other, because it's such a small community. How else to explain why the interiors of the Lundby Stockholm dollhouse, the company's new modern, "architect-designed" model, look like they came straight off the Ikea showroom floor?
Personally, I'm not a fan of these perfect real world re-creation-style dollhouses, complete in every detail down to the scum around the edge of the hot tub and the empty Diet Coke cans on the coffee table. I'd rather the kid sit online with The Sims all day. For my dollar (or Kroner, as the case may be), I'd rather get something plainer that works the imagination a bit more, like the A-Frame Dollhouse from Our Children's Gorilla or the classic Creative Playthings one, and let the kid start turning my bottle caps into plates instead.
Or if you must, then why not max out the other way completely? Screw the dollhouse and just five the kid a giant blue-and-yellow refrigerator box, and he turn it into a labyrinthine doll IKEA? You could buy random doll furniture in bulk from some Chinese website, or better yet, just cut and stack little pieces of cardboard to be the flatpacked inventory. Then give the kid a meatball when he's done playing, he'll never know the difference.
Stockholm Modern Doll's House by Lundby [lundby.com via kidsmodern]
