Walter Benjamin observed in his writings on the interior that 'to
live means to leave traces.' This interior design theory reader
focuses on just how such traces might manifest themselves. In order
to explore interior design's links to other disciplines, the
selected texts reflect a wide range of interests extending beyond
the traditional confines of design and architecture. It is
conceived as a matrix, which intersects social, political,
psychological, philosophical, technological and gender discourse,
with practice issues, such as materials, lighting, colour,
furnishing, and the body. The anthology presents a complex and
sometimes conflicting terrain, while also creating a distinct body
of knowledge particular to the interior. Locating theory on the
interior through these multifarious sources, it encourages future
discourse in an area often marginalised but now emerging in its own
right.
Within the reader individual excerpts are referenced to their
place in the matrix and sequenced alphabetically. This organising
strategy resists both a chronological and themed structure in order
to provoke associations and inferences between excerpts. In this
way the book offers the possibility of examining the interior from
multiple vantage points: a disciplinary focus, the spatial and
physical attributes of interiors, historical sequence, and topical
issue based. Excerpts from Thomas Hope, Catherine E. Beecher and
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edith Wharton and Charles Eastlake provide
contemporary nineteenth century accounts as the profession emerges,
whereas Barbara Penner, Penny Sparke, Charles Rice, Georges Teyssot
and Rebecca Houze offer re-interpretations of this period. The
complexities of the twentieth-century interior are revealed by
Robyn Longhurst, Kevin Melchionne, George Wagner, John Macgregor
Wise, Joel Sanders and many others.