Through a series of case studies from the mid-eighteenth century to the start of the twenty-first, this collection of essays considers the historical insights that ethno/auto/biographical investigations into the lives of individuals, groups and interiors can offer design and architectural historians. Established scholars and emerging researchers shed light on the methodological issues that arise from the use of these sources to explore the history of the interior as a site in which everyday life is experienced and performed, and the ways in which contemporary architects and interior designers draw on personal and collective histories in their practice. Historians and theorists working within a range of disciplinary contexts and historiographical traditions are turning to biography as means of exploring and accounting for social, cultural and material change - and this volume reflects that turn, representing the fields of architectural and design history, social history, literary history, creative writing and design practice. Topics include masters and servants in eighteenth-century English kitchens; the lost interiors of Oscar Wilde's 'House Beautiful'; Elsa Schiaparelli's Surrealist spaces; Jean Genet, outlaws, and the interiors of marginality; and architect Lina Bo Bardi's 'Glass House', S?Paulo, Brazil.

For the international cast of contributors to this volume being “in fashion” is about self-presentation; defining how fashion is presented in the visual, written, and performing arts; and about design, craft manufacturing, packaging, marketing, and archives.

Interior Provocations: History, Theory, and Practice of Autonomous Interiors addresses the broad cultural, historical, and theoretical implications of interiors beyond their conventionally defined architectural boundaries. With provocative contributions from leading and emerging historians, theorists, and design practitioners, the book is rooted in new scholarship that expands traditional relationships between architecture and interiors and that reflects the latest theoretical developments in the fields of interior design history and practice. This collection contains diverse case studies from the late eighteenth century to the twenty-first century including Alexander Pope’s Memorial Garden, Design Indaba, and Robin Evans. It is an essential read for researchers, practitioners, and students of interior design at all levels.

By carefully conceptualising the domestic in relation to the self and the photographic, this book offers a unique contribution to both photography theory and criticism, and life-narrative studies. Jane Simon brings together two critical practices into a new conversation, arguing that artists who harness domestic photography can advance a more expansive understanding of the autobiographical. Exploring the idea that self-representation need not equate to self-portraiture or involve the human form, artists from around the globe are examined, including Rinko Kawauchi, Catherine Opie, Dayanita Singh, Moyra Davey, and Elina Brotherus, who maintain a personal gaze at domestic detail. By treating the representation of interiors, domestic objects, and the very practice of photographic seeing and framing as autobiographical gestures, this book reframes the relationship between interiors and exteriors, public and private, and insists on the importance of domestic interiors to understandings of the self and photography. The book will be of interest to scholars working in photographic history and theory, art history, and visual studies.

Since the publication of Edward Said's groundbreaking work Orientalism 35 years ago, numerous studies have explored the West's fraught and enduring fascination with the so-called Orient. Focusing their critical attention on the literary and pictorial arts, these studies have, to date, largely neglected the world of interior design. Oriental Interiors is the first book to fully explore the formation and perception of eastern-inspired interiors from an orientalist perspective. Orientalist spaces in the West have taken numerous forms since the 18th century to the present day, and the fifteen chapters in this collection reflect that diversity, dealing with subjects as varied and engaging as harems, Turkish baths on RMS Titanic, Parisian bachelor quarters, potted palms, and contemporary yoga studios. It explores how furnishings, surface treatments, ornament and music, for example, are deployed to enhance the exoticism and pleasures of oriental spaces, looking across a range of international locations. Organized into three parts, each introduced by the editor, the essays are grouped by theme to highlight critical paths into the intersections between orientalist studies, spatial theory, design studies, visual culture and gender studies, making this essential reading for students and researchers alike.

Since Charles Fredrick Worth established his luxurious Maison de Couture in 1858, the interior has played a crucial role in the display of fashion. House of Fashion provides a full historical account of the interplay between fashion and the modern interior, demonstrating how they continue to function as a site for performing modern, gendered identities for designers and their clientele alike. In doing so, it traces how designers including Poiret, Vionnet, Schiaparelli and Dior used commercial spaces and domestic interiors to enhance their credentials as connoisseurs of taste and style. Taking us from the early years of haute couture to the luxury fashion of the present day, Berry explores how the salon, the atelier and the boutique have allowed fashion to move beyond the aesthetics of dress, to embrace the visual seduction of the theatrical, artistic, and the exotic. From the Art Deco allure of Coco Chanel's Maison to the luminous spaces of contemporary flagship stores, House of Fashion sets out fashion's links with key figures in architecture and design, including Louis Süe, Robert Mallet-Stevens, Eileen Gray, and Jean-Michel Frank. Drawing on photographs, advertisements, paintings and illustrations, this interdisciplinary study examines how fashionable interiors have shaped our understanding of architecture, dress, and elegance.

A critical overview of contemporary design and its place within the broader context of art history A Companion to Contemporary Design since 1945 introduces readers to a collection of specially commissioned essays exploring the complex areas of design that emerged through the latter half of the twentieth century, design history, design methods, design studies and more recently, design thinking. The book delivers a thoughtful overview of all design disciplines and also strives to stimulate inter-disciplinary debate and examine unconsidered convergences among design applications in different fields. By offering a new perspective on design, the articles assembled here present a challenging account of the boundaries between design history and its cognate disciplines, especially art history. The volume comprises five sections—Time, Place, Space, Objects and Audiences—that discuss environments for design and how we interact with designed objects and spaces. Notable features include: 24 new essays reflecting the current state of design history and theory, and examining developments on a global basis Contributions by eminent scholars and practitioners from around the globe Enriched throughout with illustrations A Companion to Contemporary Design since 1945 provides a new and thought-provoking revision of our conception and understanding of contemporary design that will be essential reading for students at both undergraduate and graduate levels as well as researchers and teachers working in design history, theory and practice, and in related fields.

An important contribution to understanding the development of modern New York, focusing on elite domestic architecture—in particular the James B. Duke House—within the contexts of social history, urban planning, architecture and interiors, and adaptive reuse for new functions.

Scholarly interest in Art Deco has grown rapidly over the past fifty years, spanning different academic disciplines. This volume provides a guide to the current state of the field of Art Deco research by highlighting past accomplishments and promising new directions. Chapters are presented in five sections based on key concepts: migration, public culture, fashion, politics, and Art Deco’s afterlife in heritage restoration and new media. The book provides a range of perspectives on and approaches to these issues, as well as to the concept of Art Deco itself. It highlights the slipperiness of Art Deco yet points to its potential to shed new light on the complexities of modernity.

Design and Agency brings together leading international design scholars and practitioners to address the concept of agency in relation to objects, organisations and people. The authors set out to expand the scope of design history and practice, avoiding the heroic narratives of a typical modernist approach. They consider both how the agents of design construct and express their identities and subjectivities through practice, while also investigating the distinctive contribution of design in the construction of individual identity and subjectivity. Individual chapters explore notions of agency in a range of design disciplines and historical periods, including the agency of women in effecting changes to the design of offices and working practices; the role of Jeffrey Lindsay and Buckminster Fuller in developing the design of a geodesic dome; Le Corbusier's 'Casa Curutchet'; a re-consideration of the gendered historiography of the 'Jugendstil' movement, and Bruce Mau's design exhibitions. Taken together, the essays in Design and Agency provide a much-needed response to the traditional texts which dominate design history. With a broad chronological span from 1900 to the present, and an equally broad understanding of the term 'design', it expands how we view the discipline, and shows how design itself can be an agent for social, cultural and economic change.