The Handbook of Interior Architecture and Design

Graeme Brooker, Lois Weinthal

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781350087392
• eBook ISBN: 9781472539045
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Conception
• Subtopic: Conception générale

The Handbook of Interior Architecture and Design offers a compelling collection of original essays that seek to examine the shifting role of interior architecture and interior design, and their importance and meaning within the contemporary world. Interior architecture and interior design are disciplines that span a complexity of ideas, ranging from human behaviour and anthropology to history and the technology of the future. Approaches to designing the interior are in a constant state of flux, reflecting and adapting to the changing systems of history, culture and politics. It is this process that allows interior design to be used as evidence for identifying patterns of consumption, gender, identity and social issues. The Handbook of Interior Architecture and Design provides a pioneering overview of the ideas and arrangements within the two disciplines that make them such important platforms from which to study the way humans interact with the space around them. Covering a wide range of thought and research, the book enables the reader to investigate fully the changing face of interior architecture and interior design, while offering questions about their future trajectory.

PART 1

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Contexts

Introduction

Entitled “Contexts,” this section outlines the main areas of the discipline where the majority of its research is and has been undertaken. Histories, education, practice, and the profession are territories that constitute the fundamental contexts that form the main areas of research within the subject of interiors. The narrative of interior architecture and design’s identity is not a singular account but instead a story that is constructed out of many voices and from a diversity of perspectives. Therefore, chapters in this section are juxtaposed in order to promulgate differing points of view, contrary readings of similar sources, and the use of unorthodox and sometimes personal project material. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of this subject, a multiplicity of views, cultures, practices, and processes have each made an impact on the subject. This part of the book traces the development and substantiation of those marks with a series of essays containing exemplary research and projects that explore and hence substantiate interior architecture and design history, theory, and research.

REFLECTING ON THE DISCIPLINE

The first section of “Contexts” contains seven chapters that have been selected in order to explore history, theory, education, and the profession, all considered fundamental components of this discipline. The first two chapters explore the history of interiors. In the past, interior design history has been approached in a number of different ways: as a history of forms and styles; as social, cultural, and political history; as material culture; and as a history of the profession. In “Modern History and Interior Design” Anne Massey gives an overview of the key issues and moments in the history of the subject, examining a number of important exemplars of the design of interior space. The chapter is structured into three main periods: the Victorians, the modern, and postmodernity. In particular, Massey places an emphasis on the use of the term modern, examining its importance and also its relevance throughout the twentieth century. The chapter examines some of the fundamental issues surrounding the modernist project and the ways in which designers, artists, and architects such as the Independent Group critiqued modernism’s obsessions with permanence and perennity, features that place modernity at odds with the temporal, a fundamental characteristic of the design of interior space. Conversely, any established history of the subject is contentious, and while one view of history may inform the subject, the development of a canon or paradigms may exclude other voices or narratives. In “Rethinking Histories, Canons, and Paradigms” John C. Turpin examines the history of the subject, utilizing the unorthodox or overlooked voices of the history of the discipline. He presents a view of the subject that is different from the accepted linear chronological timeline of history. His chapter is divided into four phases: “The Western Object,” “The Object and Society,” “Once Silent Voices,” and “Other Voices.” In the final section, entitled “A New Paradigm,” the acknowledgment and encouragement of a multiplicity of voices are proposed as a vital way forward for a subject that is maturing and becoming confident of its own place in history.

As well as the development of its own historical narrative, the need for an established and relevant theory base for the subject has often been overlooked. Although this is rapidly changing, the design of interior space has been largely an untheorized critical discipline. In “Inhabited Space: Critical Theories and the Domestic Interior” Alexa Griffith Winton discusses the emergence of key theories in interior architecture, design, and decoration, formulating three separate but interdependent categories: the spatial envelope, the contents of interior space, and the interior’s inhabitants. In order to outline a substantial and appropriate overview of critical theory and philosophy Winton uses domestic space as the critical exemplar pertinent to the study of interiors. She argues that while architectural theory has possibly inhibited the development of interior-specific theory, this imbalance is useful as a means to create a space to stimulate a meaningful critique of inside space. The emergence of interior-specific theory is concomitant with the development of particularized research methodologies. In “Methods of Research and Criticality” Gennaro Postiglione gives an exhaustive and critical examination of the variety of research methods and typologies in areas of research particular to the interior. Postiglione offers a framework of a multiplicity of research activities and processes that, he suggests, form a “hybrid” of doctrines and theories, many of which are borrowed from other creative and scientific disciplines. Postiglione gives a substantial overview of the subject area, both exploring areas of research and evaluating their relevance to the subject area. He argues that the multitude of approaches and types of interior research, as well as its openness to embracing methods from other fields, places it at the center of activity in the creative world.

In its broadest sense the education and profession of an interior architect/designer/decorator concern the design of space through human occupation. Issues surrounding the status and the title of the profession, and the education of its students, include matters such as pedagogy, processes, qualifications and the conferment of titles. These impact on fundamental issues of the status of the discipline and its agents in the field. Currently, the accepted worldwide standard educational qualification in this discipline is primarily based on the undertaking of an undergraduate degree in the subject. The type of degree undertaken is often wide-ranging in its remit. Courses vary from an emphasis on the commercial and technical aspects of the profession through to the exploration and testing of the territories and boundaries of the subject matter. Both types of courses are composed of a series of exploratory and innovative spatial design and theory projects. Whichever type of course is undertaken, an education in an interiors-based subject is a specialized discipline and one that has core characteristics. It differs from other practices and has its own unique processes and demands. In “Protected Title in Britain: An Educational Necessity?” Graham Stretton gives a historical overview of the role of education and the professional status of the designer in the United Kingdom. As an example of the development of courses he uses one of the first schools of interiors in the United Kingdom, De Montfort University in Leicester, as an exemplar of the changes to the status of education in this subject and to the status of title. Broadening the subject to incorporate Europe and the rest of the world, Kees Spanjers examines mechanisms for the legislation and regulation of the interior architect/designer/decorator in his chapter, “Regulations and Conventions: Interior Design Practice and Education.” Spanjers examines how legislation and regulation vary across the world; interior design is a process that is subject to differing degrees of regulatory controls depending on the continent in which one practices. Spanjers examines and compares the varying degrees of government recognition of the title and practice of the designer, as well as the different regulatory mechanisms and educational systems across the world. Using a case study of an imaginary project, a restaurant, Spanjers compares how different regulatory cultures and the provisions for their understanding impact on the project’s execution. Spanjers also outlines the professional and educational bodies across the globe and suggests that changing patterns in both need to be examined and understood. He argues that this would help courses and schools accommodate professionalism within their curriculums.

In the final essay of this section Drew Plunkett examines the function of professionals and their identity and prominence. He argues that their role has been substantially altered throughout the twentieth century. In “The Profession That Dare Not Speak Its Name” Plunkett argues that the emergence of the profession of the interior designer has largely been constructed in the last forty or so years, through key figures such as Terence Conran and Rodney Fitch. Plunkett challenges the domestic bias of many histories of the interior and instead suggests that the design of public space and the responsibilities that that entails form the basis of the role of the modern professional designer. Alongside this he makes a personal claim for the title of interior designer to be upheld and for education to acknowledge the skills and tools needed for this discipline to thrive and be ready for the twenty-first century.

INTERIOR TERRAINS

The chapters in this section outline the “landscape” of the design of inside space. The multiplicity of voices, ideas, methodologies, and disciplines that reside within and around the edges of the subject ensures that the delineation of its territories results in a boundary that is fluid and often ambiguous. It is the liminal qualities of what constitutes a specific territory of the discipline that make it an agile subject. Arguably, its flexibility and its unregulated character mean it is able to absorb new ideas and methods quickly into its processes and ways of working. Debatably, the sensibility of an interior architect/designer/decorator embodies the understanding and awareness of this dexterity. The eleven chapters in this section examine a range of territories, from the agents of the interior to processes of interiors, from the large scale of urbanism to the scale of the house. Chapters in this section also explore the types of programs and occupancies that the interior architect and designer will quite often be involved in the development of.

The sensibility of the interiorist is an important and yet often overlooked characteristic. In “Interiorizt” Suzie Attiwill formulates a proposition for practice that neatly sidesteps the age-old debate on the differences and similarities between the terms interior architecture/design and decoration. Instead, using the term interiorizt (the more dynamic z replacing the indifferent s), she proposes a manifesto addressing the “here and now,” a reasoned and forceful proposal to invoke the future of agents in the field. Attiwell suggests that interiorizt is used to invite a practice that delights in the full potential of the subject to critically engage with space, keeping its remit as open and as heterogeneous as possible. The interiorizt requires a very particular type of sensibility, one that is an advocate and affirmation of the diversity and multiplicity of the practicing of interior space.

The awareness of territories and the ability to contest spatial norms is an important element of the role of the interior architect/design/decorator. In “Surface Demonstration, Neutral, Not So,” Julieanna Preston examines contested territories in the form of active resistance as a gesture with particular regard to the mendacious qualities of the white wall. The formation of the chapter was prompted by the author’s expulsion from her own office, an act that resulted in an installation of the same name as the chapter, one that provoked reflections on forms and gestures of resistance. In particular, Preston suggests that the dominant notion of smoothness, or the seamlessness of surface conditions, is analogous to contemporary culture and the design of interior spaces. This uniformity eradicates traces of labor and any mark of its maker. The act of repairing the wall, itself a process of erasing traces of occupancy, and the return of the surface to its “neutral” white-walled condition, while seemingly uncontentious, is symbolic of the hidden depths of a seemingly banal stud partition wall.

One particular aspect of the territory of the interior is the adaptation of existing buildings. This aligns the subject to what are often perceived as traditional aspects of architecture such as preservation, conservation, and restoration. This type of practice is also connected to what might be construed as more radical forms of built environment and site-specific disciplines such as installation art and the transformation of existing space for new use. In “A Short History of the Room,” Fred Scott argues that at the heart of this discipline is a space called the room. Throughout history the art of the separation of the exterior from the interior was exemplified by the Adam brothers and in particular their houses in central London. Sir John Soane started to erode the primacy of the enclosure of the room, and subsequently the modernist project finished the job. It did this by eradicating distinctions between inside and outside by the use of large panels of glazing along with the suppression of ornament in order to create universal abstract space. In this chapter Scott formulates a gentle plea that all questions of the interior and its space lie at the heart of the act of intervention, the amalgam of space, the existing building, and its new use. While the design of interior space is often closely connected to the reuse of existing spaces and buildings, a significant amount of its practical work takes place in the design of yet-to-be-built edifices. “New Occupancy” is an chapter that explores working with both existing spaces and “new build” projects. In a personal and poetic essay the author Lorraine Farrelly examines function in all of its forms and the processes and principles of new occupancy. She also examines post occupancy, as a means of assessing how interiors are subsequently inhabited.

As well as using and reusing buildings the programming of the interior requires innovative and experimental solutions in order to create new forms of space. New types of programs can emerge as the result of experimental projects, installations, or interventions that are often found in sites s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Contents
• Illustrations
• General Introduction
• PART 1: Contexts
• PART 2: Occupancy
• PART 3: Representation and Fabrication
• Notes
• Contributors
• Index
• eCopyright