Its employees follow a basic pamphlet written by Kamprad in 1976, “The Testament of a Furniture Dealer,” which states that “wasting resources is a mortal sin,” and stipulates Ikea’s “duty to expand.”

Brodin, who during his career at Ikea worked for three years as an assistant to Kamprad, said in a phone interview on Sunday that the billionaire “started as a 17-year-old with two empty pockets, but a ton of entrepreneurship.

U.K. style magazine Icon in 2005 named Kamprad the most influential taste-maker in the world, and wrote “if it wasn’t for Ikea, most people would have no access to affordable contemporary design.

Storing and selling Billy book shelves or entire kitchens in pieces has let Ikea cut storage space and fill its trucks with more goods.

Kamprad ”was a great entrepreneur of the typical southern Swedish kind — hardworking and stubborn, with a lot of warmth and a playful twinkle in his eye,” Ikea said in the statement.