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Interior Design History: Some Reflections
Mark Hinchman, Ph.D., University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Oscar Wilde1
Introduction
This essay considers design history as the broadest amalgam of historical design studies, with the history of
interior design as the significant thread within it. It also examines some of the causes and ramifications that
occur when the definition of design is expanded to include computer software and ocean liners.
With this issue’s theme in mind, this perspective addresses People, Products, and Processes, and relates them
to the questions: What is interior design history, and how is it doing in light of its ever-expanding subject
matter, new interpretive methods, and nomenclature? Considering these essential categories is a good way
to approach a discipline, considering it broadly yet with a clear organization. Another way to phrase the
subtopics of this interrogation is that this critical questioning looks at interior design history, and considers
the Who, the What, and the How.
I am interested in these central questions: in addition to defining interior design history, it is worthwhile to
see how it interacts and overlaps with the related disciplines of design history, art history, and architectural
history. An on-going locus of interest is to explore interior design history’s connections, past and present,
to practice. It makes sense to consider this exploration in light of what others have said about the subject.
Starting in the late 1970s, Clive Dilnot and Victor Margolin wrote several articles in which they assessed
the state of design history.2 Since then, making reference to their articles and responses to them, including
multiple conference panels, has been one way to judge where design history stands. The intention is not
to continue the academic conversation exactly as Dilnot and Margolin framed it, but to use their insights
as a starting point for a discussion about salient issues today. In addition to scholarly sources, this essay
will examine exhibitions, for how they are curated shaped the public’s perception. Another category for an
ontological assessment is how museums, academic departments, and the degrees they offer, are named; a
trajectory of vocabulary choices tellingly offers glimpses of a disciplines’ self-identity.
The state of interior design history is foregrounded by the incontestable fact that interior design itself is
thriving. The popularity of interior design is attested to by its vibrant presence on cable television, in numerous
magazines, and in a retail sector created for it. This anecdotal state-of-the-field essay is mostly celebratory. It
will also mention some areas where attention is needed, and will then end on a high note.
The Who
Who constitutes the principal academic audience for interior design history is a straightforward question that
is easy to address. Teachers of design history make the decisions that concern what students, as future interior
designers and designers in related disciplines, need to know. Design exhibitions reach a larger audience,
and have become increasingly popular around the world. They are but one of the manifestations of the
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One of the great achievements of design history has been the work on pioneering interior designers, ‘the
great ladies of the decorating profession,’ documenting their achievements, and keeping their names alive.
popularity of interior design and its past. Design exhibitions have increased in frequency, size, complexity,
and prominence.
One of the great achievements of design history has been the work on pioneering interior designers, ‘‘the
great ladies of the decorating profession,’’ documenting their achievements, and keeping their names alive.3
In choosing to focus on this specific set of people, this is an instance in which history is involved in current
debates and politics.4 This line of scholarship can connect design history to professionalization of the field,
and its organizations, education, standards, licensing, and accreditation. Bridget May’s article on Nancy
McClelland is one example of a design historian working on a significant interior design figure and placing
her ‘‘within the context of the field’s first steps in the professionalizing process.’’5 Historical advocacy for
the profession is related to contemporary advocacy by showing that the roots of the latter are found in the
former.
A major achievement of design historians has been the felicitous circumstance that in looking at the lives
and careers of some of the major twentieth-century design figures, including Elsie de Wolfe, Dorothy
Draper, Francis Elkins, and Nancy McClelland, they were simultaneously contributing to feminist studies
and actually doing their part to crack, if not break, the glass ceiling.6 In recent years, substantial exhibitions
and publications appeared on de Wolfe, Dorothy Draper, Francis Elkins, and Candace Wheeler.7 While there
has been extensive attention to Draper and de Wolfe, it is noteworthy that the allegedly comprehensive
Dictionary of Art leaves them out.8 If an extensive design resource can ignore such important figures, then
clearly the need to draw attention to their achievements and those of their colleagues continues.
Over the past few decades, this scholarly push has righted some egregious wrongs. Through a combination
of exhibitions, publications, and a documentary, the posthumous reputation of Irish designer Eileen Gray
(1878–1976) has changed dramatically. She is now included in the pantheon of important twentieth-century
designers, and she now rightly takes her place aside other modernists. She was long put in the Art Deco camp,
not because she created Art Deco pieces, but because she was a woman. Lilly Reich similarly received her
posthumous due, after having endured a decimated postwar Berlin and faithfully representing the business
interests of her design partner and lover, Mies van der Rohe. It has been most satisfying to witness Charlotte
Perriand received her laurels when she was alive to enjoy them, a recognition long time in coming. Well into
her 90s, she was the subject of multiple books and prominent exhibitions.9 This setting the record straight is
recompense for many women who worked beside men who all too often got credit for their partner’s work,
including Anni Albers, Margaret Church, Jane Drew, Florence Knoll, and Noémi Raymond.
House museums and smaller art museums have contributed to the popularity of design history by putting
on some fine exhibitions. The Smart Museum of the University of Chicago presented ‘‘Mid-Century: ‘Good
Design’ in Europe and America: 1850–1950’’ (2010), an exhibit that included well-known designers, Breuer,
Wright, Morris and the Eames, alongside with lesser known figures. A gem from this exhibit, which mostly
flew under the radar screen, is a writing desk by Gertrude Wähner-Schmidt from 1930 (Figure 1). Based on
her exquisitely spare pieces that were highlights of the exhibit, the life’s work of this Austrian modernist is
but one example of unheralded work that demands more attention.
A decorator who occasionally incorporated modernist pieces into her designs was Francis Elkins, sister of
the more stylistically reserved architect, David Adler. Every time a publication appears such as a recent
monograph on Elkins, one wonders: how many other women designers are out there to be explored and
presented to the world at large? It seems likely that every major American city and many across the globe had
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Interior design historians have always had a healthy if complicated relationship with feminism. There is a
paradoxical quality in their findings that promote the careers of earlier women as professionals, yet these
women were active as decorators, a position that managed to both overturn and reinforce stereotypes.
Figure 1. Writing desk by Gertrude Wähner-Schmidt.
at least one woman, if not many, who, inspired by Elise de Wolfe or Dorothy Draper, turned to interiors and
there found a calling and a career. Yet for decades, design historians ignored those women (and some men)
classified as decorators. Professional designers similarly sought to draw a line between their work and that of
decorators, most famously when Florence Knoll declared ‘‘I am not a decorator.’’10
Interior design historians have always had a healthy if complicated relationship with feminism. There is a
paradoxical quality in their findings that promote the careers of earlier women as professionals, yet these
women were active as decorators, a position that managed to both overturn and reinforce stereotypes.11
Another category of people whose works initially received short shrift, and who are now getting attention,
includes previously marginalized figures such as Morris Lapidus.12 His wonderfully eclectic yet resolutely
modernist interiors, chiefly hotels and retail, raise fundamental question about possible differences between
modernist architecture and interiors that move beyond scale. Lapidus’ designs display an interest in
constructing a branded image that was unabashedly commercial; he freely used pattern and color; he
paid attention to endusers, as both employees and guests; and he had an open attitude toward mixing styles
that put him at odds with large, corporate architecture firms. These sensitivities were shared by some interior
designers of the modernist era who exhibited an ability to embrace discrepancy and complexity, a stance
that contrasted with the ideological position of canonical modernism. The opening coda, a quote from Oscar
Wilde, is presented with this discussion in mind. Wilde’s own involvement with interior design included his
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I suggest that it was the ability to tolerate elements of visual dissonance, the judicious incorporation of
traditional furniture pieces, and the overall symbolic complexity of many interior design projects that
resulted in their appeal to the public.
friendship with James Whistler, E. W. Godwin, his lectures on aesthetics, and the notable fact that his alleged
final words involved a design material at once adored and despised: ‘‘My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel
to the death. One or other of us has got to go.’’ Sadly, it was Wilde who departed.
I suggest that it was the ability to tolerate elements of visual dissonance, the judicious incorporation of
traditional furniture pieces, and the overall symbolic complexity of many interior design projects that resulted
in their appeal to the public. These were all tendencies that put the few modernist interior decorators at odds
with architectural purists.
The What
The What of interior design starts as a simple question: What do interior design historians study? The
situation is surprisingly fragmented and complex, and not more decided today than in 1984 when Dilnot
noted that ‘‘design historians as a whole have at best an incomplete grasp of their would-be subject matter.’’13
Delving into what constitutes the objects of historical study is the thorniest of this issue’s three categories.
At first, interior design history’s subject matter seems self-evident, as it is for art history and architectural
history. Yet attempts to further define the larger category of design history has for decades been intractable;
most attempts to do so admit up front the difficulty.
Victor Margolin came close to completing the task in 1988. His article is still worth reading and thoughtfully
lists the many sub-divisions that fall under the design rubric.14 My narration here differs in some of the
details, but the outline is the same. Starting with ‘‘decorative arts,’’ the design fields subsequently brought
under the design umbrella have exploded in number.
A starting point is that design history is largely centered on what used to be called ‘‘decorative arts,’’ a field
whose boundaries touched the fine arts on the one hand and crafts on the other. ‘‘Decorative arts’’ is an
authoritative word that conjures visions of Meissen, Sèvres, Aubusson, and Tiffany. It is a catchphrase that
still has currency, although it is now typically qualified in ways that it initially was not. The Cooper-Hewitt,
National Design Museum in New York, a branch of the Smithsonian, and affiliated with Cooper Union
has a Decorative Arts Festival.15 The museum offers a Master’s Program in the History of Decorative Arts
and Design. The name of this degree is indicative of a level of dissatisfaction with ‘‘Decorative Arts’’ as a
stand-alone moniker. It appears to be a dated term and appending ‘‘Design’’ to it brings it up to date and
expands its scope. Its use indicates that there is something about ‘‘Design’’ that exceeds what is indicated
with Decorative Arts.
Other examples include Virginia Commonwealth University, which has a Symposium on Architectural
History and the Decorative Arts.16 The Victoria and Albert Museum describes itself as ‘‘the world’s largest
museum of decorative arts and design.’’17 This raises the question: Why did ‘‘decorative arts’’ cease to be an
acceptable descriptor of design history’s subject? Ideologically, part of the blame lies with the Arts and Crafts
movement and the Bauhaus. Central to the philosophy of practitioners of both was that the highest calling
of designers was not limited to creating objects that somehow counted as artworks; utilitarian objects were
equally worthy of design effort. ‘‘Arts and Crafts’’ itself was not an acceptable term for some theorists of the
modern movement who stressed that designing for factory production was of the highest calling. Hence the
result is that the professions that design historians consider their subject-matter are often called, or described
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In this essay’s quest to probe design history’s subject matter, after starting with decorative arts, I am
including design, crafts, product design, and industrial design. If it feels that the task of defining design is
spinning out of control, it probably is. And there is more.
as containing Product Design and/or Industrial Design. Which brings us to the delightful German word,
Kunstgewerbe.
The website of the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin describes its collection as containing ‘‘silks and costumes,
tapestries, decorative wainscots and furniture, vessels made of glass, enamel, and porcelain, works in silver
and gold as well as many contemporary crafts and design objects.’’18 This represents a common strategy.
A failure to define typologically the category of design is often resolved with a copious list of particulars.
Different websites for the Berlin Museum alternately translate ‘‘Kunstgewerbe’’ as ‘‘Decorative Arts’’ and
‘‘Applied Arts.’’ Both the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin and the Victoria and Albert include fashion in their
collections, indicating yet another occasional area of overlap.
In this essay’s quest to probe design history’s subject matter, after starting with decorative arts, I am including
design, crafts, product design, and industrial design. If it feels that the task of defining design is spinning out
of control, it probably is.19 And there is more.
In naming its degrees, the University of Cincinnati displays a debt to the Bauhaus and its internal organization.
It offers a Bachelor of Science Degree in Industrial Design. The website states that ‘‘Industrial design is
concerned with the appearance and usefulness of manufactured goods. Product design involves . . . ’’20 The
second sentence does not present ‘‘Product design’’ as an alternative design sphere, but the same one, so
according to the University of Cincinnati, industrial design and product design are more or less the same
entity. Raymond Loewy, Charles and Ray Eames, and Marianne Brandt were all designers whose careers
embody the idea of design as an activity that includes at its center manufactured products.
Many of the lauded figures in the design history canon unquestionably fit this definition, perhaps none so
neatly as Norman Bel Geddes, the subject of an exhibit at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of
Texas.21 Further broadening the field is the fact that a significant specialization within product design is
transportation. At Cincinnati, a student can specialize in transportation design, meaning cars, buses, trains,
planes, and ships and their interiors. Florida International University offers a certificate in Cruise Ship and
Super Yacht Design. Design historian Anne Massey, who has written one of the standard texts on design,
also wrote a book on ocean liner interiors.22
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago adds yet another appellation to the list of what constitutes design
history’s subject: designed objects, a term that broadens the field even further. Their ‘‘Designed Objects
Pathway’’ includes ‘‘product design, system design, furniture design, speculative design, and interaction
design.’’23 The continual opening up of the design field is represented by the most expansive word to date.
Shifting from the method of production of individual objects to groups of objects allows us to consider
the multiple ways that ensembles of things create meaning. Some displays of the designs of the Eames and
Bel Geddes bring together objects that were never intended to be seen together. An alternate scenario is
the exhibitions that are continually a feature of the Neue Galerie, New York. Ronald Lauder funded and
founded this fine museum that is committed to championing the arts of the Vienna Secession. For ‘‘Josef
Hoffmann Interiors: 1902–1913,’’ (2006), they recreated four rooms in their entirety, replete with textiles,
stencils, and light fixtures.24 These exhibits go to the heart of one concept of design, which has a different
slant than one focused on assembly line production. With his commitment to Gesamtkunstwerk, or total
designed environment, Hoffmann’s projects demonstrate his formulation of design as an aesthetic activity
that is all-encompassing and includes space, architecture, interiors, furnishings, art, textiles, and hardware.
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Regarding subject matter, interior design history is less problematic, although it has been broadening its
scope in recent decades. Interior design historians increasingly have been looking at nonresidential designs,
such as offices, health care facilities, hospitality projects, and academic institutions. Regarding form,
material, provenance, and type, the subjects of recent design history are as varied as can be.
Figure 2. Chair designed by Adolf Loos.
For many modernist designers, design was not a varied list with dissimilar elements; a single designer was
actively engaged in multiple design areas.
Interior design histories, such as John Pile’s accomplished A History of Interior Design, often examine the
designs of stock figures, mostly men, in architectural history, such as Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and
Alvar Aalto.25 Exhibits on architects in recent years take a new direction and put furniture designs front and
center. The Royal Institute of British Architects, London, presented a modest exhibit, ‘‘Learning to Dwell:
Adolf Loos in the Czech Lands’’ (2011). Loos argued that ornament was a crime, yet his design for a sensuous
lounge chair moves well beyond functionalism and suggests that his notorious salvo should not be taken too
simplistically (Figure 2).
A feature of introspective professional musings is to bemoan that which lacks, and that which could and
should be. For the broad field of design history, as Margolin et al. pointed out, lacks a clear mission regarding
its subject matter, at least in a way that can be easily communicated to the world at large. Design historians
work in many fields, and the objects of study include Greyhound buses, cigarette packages, Skylab, Turkish
carpets, Moroccan mosaics, humidors, howdahs and hookahs, the font Helvetica, Gobelins tapestries, English
creamware, Wedgewood kylixes, and pretty much every bibelot and piece of bric-a-brac that the bourgeoisie
ever coveted. Considering tout cela, how much consistency can one expect?
In defining the object of design history’s interpretive gaze, it seems that often one can do no better than to
create a heteroclite list of subfields. The compulsion to describe the field by listing is echoed in a song sung
by the fictionalized version of Addison Mizner. In Stephan Sondheim’s Bounce, the historic architect, interior
decorator, and real estate developer Addison Mizner sings:
I’ve got lots of memories,
Plus a Ming tureen,
And a Lacquered Screen,
A statue painted a bilious green,
An old stone jug
And a long silk rug,
And a chandelier that’s a bitch to lug,
A desk, a whatnot, a fan, a chair26
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Perhaps the task of defining Design as a noun is the problem; an alternative is to consider Design as a verb.
Regarding subject matter, interior design history is less problematic, although it has been broadening its
scope in recent decades. Interior design historians increasingly have been looking at nonresidential designs,
such as offices, health care facilities, hospitality projects, and academic institutions. Regarding form, material,
provenance, and type, the subjects of recent design history are as varied as can be. Perhaps the task of defining
Design as a noun is the problem; an alternative is to consider Design as a verb.
The How
Numerous theorists as of late have expressed their interest in defining design as a verb. Margolin, in 1995
called for design to be an activity; Dilnot, in 2009, wants to reconstitute it as problem solving and research.27
Intelligent design, evidence-based design, and design thinking are all topical approaches that reposition design
as a serious social, technological, and commercial endeavor.
Methodologically, interior design history is a field called to tackle head on groupings of diverse objects in a
single locale and the meanings they jointly create, in ways both new and well-established. A French historic
dictionary dates the word ‘‘ensemblier’’ to 1920, when the activity to bring things artfully into a grouping
was given a professional designation. To combine diverse articles as an aesthetic exercise was the realm of
decorators.28 Thinking of design as action opens up the possibility of moving beyond aesthetics to considering
other meanings that are created when disparate objects come together.
Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann was one of the designers selected to participate in the 1925 Exposition des Arts
Décoratifs. Ruhlmann designed by bringing pieces together, and by crafting inspired solo objects. An armless
chair of his from 1923 demonstrates that his work contrasted greatly from that of another participant,
Le Corbusier (Figure 3). Regarding the binaries of object and image, modern and classical, architecture
and furniture, and quotidian or luxurious, Ruhlmann’s piece differed in every conceivable way from Le
Corbusier’s functionalist designs. He designed exquisite individual objects, and he incorporated the works of
other designers in his projects, two different design activities.
Those who call for design practice to improve its reputation by emphasizing problem-solving often transition
to suggesting that interior design historians should similarly emphasize how designers of the past did this as
well. My purpose here with this third section, on method, is not to dictate to interior design historians what
they must do. I am pointing out a few worthwhile directions because I think that historians will benefit from
the engagement of design with new objects and methodologies. I am mostly bringing attention to activities
that are already taking place.
Dissimilar objects create meaning with their variety especially when in proximity. Another kind of diversity,
ethnic and geographic, has made its imprint on all quarters of academia, a shift in subject-matter that
administrations encouraged. While the push and pull of an internationalization on the field is strong, it is
also clear that full integration—of subject matter—and of people, will take time. A field which has been
at the forefront of bringing attention to a gender bias in its own past cannot lag behind in confronting its
Western-centric focus.29 This should occur in terms of how design survey courses are taught and also the
theoretical interests of historical inquiry.
Postcolonial studies has not, thus far, made a significant impact on design history. Sibel Bozdogon discussed
the impact of postcolonialism on the architecture survey course.30 This subject belongs to the How category
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Dissimilar objects create meaning with their variety especially when in proximity. Another kind of diversity,
ethnic and geographic, has made its imprint on all quarters of academia. While the push and pull of an
internationalization on the field is strong, it is also clear that full integration—of subject matter—and of
people, will take time.
Figure 3. Chair designed by Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann from 1923.
because one of the benefits of the international turn is that new subjects bring with them new ways of
interpretation. This also returns us to the question of what categories of things design historians should
look at. This thorny issue also vexed art history. Should design history include objects previously termed
ethnographic, and many of which are still held in natural history museums?
The steady but slow progress indicates that a more global design history is a project in the making. One design
historian, educated in Japan, and with teaching experience in North America and Europe, is tackling the
challenging of constructing a globally inclusive design history. Two of Sarah Teasley’s publications provide
some answers: Global Design History and 20th Century Design History.31
As part of design history’s collective globalizing effort, Dilnot expresses doubts that a history of African
design is possible.32 Africa as a design force is understudied, despite the impressive progress in that direction
that Washington University in St. Louis architectural historian Udo Kultermann started in the 1960s.33 With
the early date of his publications, one would expect that studies of African modern design would be further
along. William Riehm has a simple method to combat the dearth of materials on African design. His method
to learn about African furniture is to hit the streets of Banjul, The Gambia armed with a video camera, and
ask furniture designers to tell their stories.
The insights offered by postcolonial theorists have rippled across all disciplines and will benefit design
historians of all stripes. The cultural to-and-fro that was a characteristic of contact zones involved the appeal
of shiny baubles to those who came from a different culture.34 The relocation and dislocation of people often
involved attempts to create objects that were similar to others in form, yet crafted out of new materials,
and made by people with different training and who came from different aesthetic traditions. All this is ripe
fodder for design historians.
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A field which has been at the forefront of bringing attention to a gender bias in its own past cannot lag
behind in confronting its Western-centric focus. This should occur in terms of how design survey courses are
taught and also the theoretical interests of historical inquiry.
A strength of interior design history is that it has always provided a welcoming atmosphere for new voices,
subjects, and approaches. Any academic conference has its dynamic tensions. The stakes are high for attendees,
armed with a PowerPoint, laser pointer, and a stack of CVs. These hopefuls attend conferences because they
are building their dossiers in order to get tenure, they are seeking employment, and/or hope to change jobs.
Yet many a first time visitor to the conference of the Interior Design Educators Council (IDEC), which has
regular panels on design history, notices that while the dynamic frisson of the academic world is present,
there is a visible lack of the paranoia, turf wars and enmity that are a feature of other scholarly conferences.
It is a safe place to test out new methodologies.
Part of the openness of the field of interiors is less discussed, although hardly a secret. There are innumerable
connections between gay men and women and the field of interior design, as practitioners and educators,
including historians.35 To consider an analogous situation, one would greet the ‘‘news’’ that there is a
superabundance of gay men and women in interior design with the same level of surprise as hearing that
they (we) are over-represented among the ranks of judges at beauty pageants.36 One might think, therefore,
that the issues of design, sexuality, and identity would interest historians of interior design, but this scholarly
realm as it intersects with design history remains largely unexpressed. I suspect that this is more because
interior design scholarly studies are less theoretically based, and queer studies and feminist studies tend to be
highly theoretical.37
The historian of design and applied arts Grace Lees-Maffei argues that the interior has been conceptualized
as a conflation of the domestic, the feminine, and the amateur, at the expense of considering the opposite
situation. This was not her central point, but her thesis draws attention to the need for masculinity studies as
part of the continuing examination of gender.38
From specifics to a general attitude toward theory, Margolin, Dilnot, and their followers noted that those
active in interior design history often focus on form, style, and chronology. Margolin began his discussion
with an analysis of Nikolaus Pevsner’s rhapsodic take on William Morris and Walter Gropius.39 Art historian
James Elkins writes about art, interiors, and decorative objects, and sympathetically notes the difficulty
professors have in not describing art forms as progressing over time, and being related to their place and
era.40 Focusing on such features in lectures to students, presentations, and publications, design historians have
been displaying acute attention to material features. They were doing so at the same time, 1970s and 1980s,
that art historians were turning away from them.41 Art historians were at the center of poststructuralism
and its disdain of style and chronology, approaches to which they are now, shyly creeping back. For design
historians, the stake in abandoning style and chronology was always large. Any professor who has had to
explain that Charles and Ray Eames were not brothers understands the occasional necessity of teaching facts.
Or, as I once had to, try to think of how to explain that Napoleon and Jesus likely did not know each
other; eschewing chronology often had undesired consequences and smacked of throwing the baby out with
the bathwater. For better or for worse, design histories never abandoned form, style, and chronology to the
extent that art historians did (or tried). There is nothing new about calls for the history of interior design
to consider thematic, nonlinear approaches. A previous special issue of the Journal of Interior Design, 1998,
featured multiple articles whose common theme was an interest in theory.42
As for international collaboration, Americans have a model in the relationship with the United Kingdom,
regarding joint publications and conferences.43 While there have always been individual historians who
worked on Italian, or Chinese, or Mexican objects, these efforts have not coalesced into an international
community of design historians. Now we need to do more looking abroad, where we see that there is much to
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One example sits grandly in Vietnam’s highlands. The summer house of King Bao Dai is a popular local
attraction. This home, designed and furnished, still exists in its entirety, a rare situation that raises as many
questions as it answers.
Figure 4. Summer house of King Bao Dai designed by Huynh Tan Phat.
do, relationships to forge, and topics galore. One example sits grandly in Vietnam’s highlands. The summer
house of King Bao Dai is a popular local attraction (Figure 4). This home, designed and furnished, still exists in
its entirety, a rare situation that raises as many questions as it answers. Previously erroneously connected to Le
Corbusier, it is credited to the architect turned politician Huynh Tan Phat. Who designed and made the custom
furniture? What were the architect’s connections to European design, which he obviously knew very well?
A High Note, as Promised
With no clear mission, a multitude of source materials, and no common method, how is interior design
history doing? Very well. A focus of university administrators is promoting projects that cross disciplinary
lines. Interdisciplinarity does not need to be imposed on interior design historians, it is at the core of what we
do and always has been. Interior design history, like the practice whose past it analyzes, has always provided
a welcoming environment for new members. The move to design thinking has received a shove from the
business sector, and design historians are well placed to lead the conversation. It might continue to happen
that the greatest shifts in philosophical thinking come from outside our discipline, but they are taken in new
directions by those in the field, and good naturedly. In addition to examining popular subjects, we are skilled
at dealing with complications. Apparent discrepancies and a lack of ideological artistic purity have bothered
interior designers less.
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With no clear mission, a multitude of source materials, and no common method, how is interior design
history doing? Very well.
I am sympathetic to the drive to increase design’s reputation by emphasizing its problem-solving abilities.44 I
think, however, that there is often a joyous exuberance to enjoying historic interior designs that can take the
discipline in other equally valid directions that do not rely on a new functionalism. Dilnot himself described
the wonder he felt at first seeing the Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art.
In addition to the popularity of the objects of our inquiry, I consider the ability of design historians on par
with anyone to engage in object analysis, that is, the ability to wrest meaning out of historical designs and
designed objects. And a quality of the designs mentioned here, consistent with Wilde’s call for complexity and
plurality, is their ability to momentarily challenge orthodoxy for the simple cause of creating a pleasing effect.
Notes
1
John Wyse Jackson, ed., Aristotle at Afternoon Tea: the Rare Oscar Wilde (London: Fourth Estate, 1991).
2
Clive Dilnot, ‘‘The State of Design History, Part I: Mapping the Field,’’ Design Issues 1, no. 1 (Spring 1984): 4–23; ‘‘The State of Design
History, Part II: Problems and Possibilities,’’ Design Issues 1, no. 2 (Autumn 1984): 3–20; ‘‘Some Futures for Design History?’’ Journal of
Design History 22, no. 4 (2009): 377–94; and Victor Margolin, ‘‘A Decade of Design History in the United States, 1971–87,’’
Journal of Design History 1, no. 1 (1988): 51–72; and Margolin, ‘‘Design History or Design Studies: Subject Matter and Methods,’’
Design Issues II, no. 1 (Spring 1995): 4–15.
3 This
is how Interior Design magazine described the group to which Nancy McClelland belonged in its obituary to her. Quoted in Bridget
May, ‘‘Nancy Vincent McClelland (1877–1959): Professionalizing Interior Decoration in the Early Twentieth Century.’’ Journal of
Design History 21, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 60.
4
Some of the studies of pioneering interior designers are less polemical and focus on biographical details.
5 Bridget
May, ‘‘Nancy Vincent McClelland (1877–1959): Professionalizing Interior Decoration in the Early Twentieth Century,’’ Journal of
Design History 21, no. 1 (2008), 59.
6
May, ‘‘Nancy Vincent McClelland (1877–1959),’’ 2008, 59–74.
7
Carleton Varney, In the Pink: Dorothy Draper, America’s Most Fabulous Decorator (New York: Pointed Leaf Press, 2006); Stephen Salny,
Frances Elkins: Interior Design (New York: Norton, 2005); Penny Sparke, Elsie de Wolfe: The Birth of Modern Interior Decoration (New
York: Acanthus Press, 2005). The Museum of the City of New York presented the exhibition ‘‘The High Style of Dorothy Draper’’ in
2006; Amelia Peck and Carol Irish, Candace Wheeler: the Art and Enterprise of American Design, 1875–1900, exhibition catalog
(New Haven, CT: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001.
8 Jane
9
Turner, ed., Dictionary of Art , 34 vols. (New York: Grove’s Dictionaries, 1996).
The Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, and the Design Museum, London, had retrospectives of her career, and she published the first version
of A Life in Creation: An Autobiography in 1998.
10 Virginia
11 May,
Lee Warren, ‘‘Woman Who Led an Office Revolution Rules an Empire of Modern Design,’’ New York Times (April 15, 1964): 40.
‘‘Nancy Vincent McClelland followed a new career path for a traditional feminine role,’’ 70.
12
Morris Lapidus, Morris Lapidus: the Architecture of Joy (New York: Rizzoli, 2010).
13
Dilnot, ‘‘The State of Design History, Part I’’.
14 Victor
Margolin, ‘‘A Decade of Design History in the United States 1977–87.’’ Journal of Design History 1, no. 1 (1988): 51–72.
15 http://www.cooperhewitt.org/learning/masters-program
16 http://arts.vcu.edu/arthistory/news-events/
17
http://www.vam.ac.uk/
18
http://www.smb.museum/smb/standorte/index.php?p=2&objID=37&n=8
19
This story of design history can be further complicated by including graphics, not typically an area art and architectural histories cover.
Largely because of the centrality of graphics to Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, and the Bauhaus, the history of graphics is sometimes
considered to fall under the design history purview. Margolin devoted considerable attention to graphics in his article on design history.
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20 http://daap.uc.edu/academics/design.html
21 ‘‘Norman
Bel Geddes Designs America’’ (2012–2013), The Harry Ransom Center, the University of Texas at Austin.
22 Anne
Massey, Interior Design of the 20th Century (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1990); and Designing Liners: a History of Interior
Design Afloat (London: Routledge, 2006).
23 http://www.saic.edu/academics/departments/aiado/
24
The exhibition resulted in an exhibition catalog of the same name, Christian Witt-Dörring, ed., Josef Hoffmann: Interiors 1902–1913
(Munich: Prestel, 2006).
25
John Pile, A History of Interior Design (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000).
26
Stephen Sondheim, Bounce, was presented at the Goodman Theater, Chicago, in 2003 and later played at Kennedy Center,
Washington, DC. It was reconceptualized and recast, emphasizing drama rather comedy and titled Road Show , 2008.
27 Victor
Margolin, ‘‘Design History of Design Studies: Subject Matter and Methods,’’ Design Issues 11, no. 1 (Spring 1995); ‘‘Design Is an
Activity That Is Constantly Changing,’’ 10; and Clive Dilnot, ‘‘Some Futures for Design History?’’ Journal of Design History 22, no. 4
(2009); ‘‘The Subject Matter of Design History Is the Capacity of Design,’’ 393.
28
Alain Rey, ed., Dictionary entry for ‘‘ensemble,’’ Dictionnaire Historique de la Langue Française (Paris: Dictionnaires Le Robert, 1998),
1248.
29 Sibel
Bozdogon examines the relationship between postcolonialism and the architecture survey course in ‘‘Architectural History in
Professional Education: Reflections on Postcolonial Challenges to the Modern Survey,’’ Journal of Architectural Education 52, no. 4
(May 1999): 207–15.
30
Sibel Bozdogon, ‘‘Architectural History in Professional Education: Reflections on Postcolonial Challenges to the Modern Survey.’’ Journal of
Architectural Education 52, no. 4 (May 1999): 207–15.
31 With
a PhD from the University of Tokyo, and experience teaching in the United States and the United Kingdom, she is well poised to
address the global challenge. Glenn Adamson, Giorgio, and Sarah Teasley, Global Design History (London: Routledge, 2011); and
Sarah Teasley and Chiharu Watabe, 20th Century Design History (Japan: Petit Grand Publishing, 2005).
32
‘‘There is no ‘history of African design’—nor would it ameliorate that history of absence and poverty to attempt to write such a history.’’
Clive Dilnot, 2009, 387.
33 Udo
Kultermann, New Architecture in the World (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1976); and New Directions in African Architecture (New York:
Braziller, 1969).
34 ‘‘Contact
zones’’ is a phrase that Mary Louise Pratt used in Imperial Eyes: Travel, Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992).
Others have taken it up as a term that addresses cultural exchanges that happened in certain locales without always using the
description ‘‘colonial.’’
35
William Mann wrote a book that tackles the issue head on, and examines the life and career of actor turned interior decorator Billy Haines,
Wisecracker: the Life and Times of William Haines, Hollywood’s First Openly Gay Star (New York: Penguin, 1999); Adam Lewis
biography Van Day Truex: The Man Who Defined Twentieth-Century Taste and Style (New York: Penguin, 2001), is equally forthright.
36 Lynn
Spigel and Erica Rand note that at Barbie doll conventions, while it is quite obvious that gay men and women are interested and
present, it is a fact that is more quietly acknowledge than openly admitted. Erica Rand, Barbie’s Queer Accessories (Durham: Duke
University Press, 1995): 162–3.
37
Caroline Hill and Carl Matthews, ‘‘Gay Until Proven Straight: Exploring Perceptions of Male Interior Designers from Male Practitioner and
Student Perspectives,’’ Journal of Interior Design 36, no. 3 (May 2011): 15–34.
38 Grace
Lees-Maffei, ‘‘Professionalization as a Focus in Interior Design History,’’ Journal of Design History 21, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 1–18.
39 Nikolaus
40
Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974).
James Elkins, Stories of Art (New York: Routledge, 2002): 54.
41 The
subject of art historians refashioning their approaches to art is a subject that School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) art historian
James Elkins has addressed multiple times: What Happened to Art (Bristol: University Presses Marketing, 2003).
42
For example, Mary Anne Beecher, ‘‘Toward a Critical Approach to the History of Interiors,’’ Journal of Interior Design 24, no. 2
(September 1998): 4–11.
43
A new journal Interiors: Design Architecture Culture (Berg Journals) is co-edited by the British historian Anne Massey, and the American
historian John Turpin. In 2008, IDEC and the Modern Interiors Research Center, United Kingdom, jointly sponsored their first Design
History Symposium, ‘‘Crafting an Historical Narrative of the History of Interior Design,’’ 2008.
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prominent and well-argued example is by Michael Speaks, ‘‘Intelligence After Theory,’’ Perspecta 38 (2006): 101–106.
Mark Hinchman is an Associate Professor in the Interior Design Program at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. He teaches history of interiors, architectural history, and design studio courses. A
Fulbright scholar to Senegal, he has completed a book manuscript based on his dissertation on West African
domestic architecture. He is also putting the finishing touches on his second interior design textbook. The
first, History of Furniture, received IDEC’s 2011 Book and Media award. Colin Rowe sparked Hinchman’s
interest in interiors when he was a student in the eminent theorist’s urban design studio. After an internship
in Frankfurt, Germany, Hinchman embarked on his professional career in commercial interiors in Chicago,
working for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) and the Environments Group. His current research
focuses on the history of interiors, other modernisms, and ocean liner interiors, and has been funded by the
Graham Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Getty Research Institute.
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