interior design
Berlin Philharmonic Concert Hall
Interior design, planning and design of man-made spaces, a part of environmental design and closely related to architecture. Although the desire to create a pleasant environment is as old as civilization itself, the field of interior design is relatively new.
Since at least the middle of the 20th century, the term interior decorator has been so loosely applied as to be nearly meaningless, with the result that other, more descriptive terms have come into use. The term interior design indicates a broader area of activity and at the same time suggests its status as a serious profession. In some European countries, where the profession is well established, it is known as interior architecture. Individuals who are concerned with the many elements that shape man-made environments have come to refer to the total field as environmental design.
Principles of interior design
It is important to emphasize that interior design is a specialized branch of architecture or environmental design; it is equally important to keep in mind that no specialized branch in any field would be very meaningful if practiced out of context. The best buildings and the best interiors are those in which there is no obvious disparity between the many elements that make up the totality. Among these elements are the structural aspects of a building, the site planning, the landscaping, the furniture, and the architectural graphics (signs), as well as the interior details. Indeed, there are many examples of distinguished buildings and interiors that were created and coordinated by one guiding hand.
Because of the technological complexity of contemporary planning and building, it is no longer possible for a single architect or designer to be an expert in all the many aspects that make up a modern building. It is essential, however, that the many specialists who make up a team be able to communicate with each other and have sufficient basic knowledge to carry out their common goals. While the architect usually concerns himself with the overall design of buildings, the interior designer is concerned with the more intimately scaled aspects of design, the specific aesthetic, functional, and psychological questions involved, and the individual character of spaces.
Although interior design is still a developing profession without a clear definition of its limits, the field can be thought of in terms of two basic categories: residential and nonresidential. The latter is often called contract design because of the manner in which the designer receives his compensation (i.e., a contractual fee arrangement), in contrast to the commission or percentage arrangement prevalent among residential interior decorators. Although the volume of business activity in the field of residential interiors continues to grow, there seems to be less need and less challenge for the professional designer, with the result that more and more of the qualified professionals are involved in nonresidential work.
The field of interior design already has a number of specialized areas. One of the newer areas is “space planning”—i.e., the analysis of space needs, allocation of space, and the interrelation of functions within business firms. In addition to these preliminary considerations, such design firms are usually specialists in office design.
Many design firms have become specialized in such fields as the design of hotels, stores, industrial parks,or shopping centres. Others work primarily on large college or school projects, and still others may be specialists in the design of hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes. Design firms active in nonresidential work range from small groups of associates to organizations comprised of 50 to 100 employees. Most of the larger firms include architects, industrial designers, and graphic designers. In contrast, interior designers who undertake residential commissions are likely to work as individuals or possibly with two or three assistants. The size of the firms involved in nonresidential design is a clear indication of the relative complexity of the large commissions. In addition to being less complex, residential design is a different type of activity. The residential interior is usually a highly personal statement for both the owner and the designer, each of whom is involved with all aspects of the design; it is unlikely that a client who wished to engage the services of an interior designer for his home would be happy with an organized systems approach.
Most large architectural firms have established their own interior-design departments, and smaller firms have at least one specialist in the field. There are no precise boundaries to the profession of interior design nor, in fact, to any of the design professions. Furniture design, for example, is carried out by industrial designers and furniture designers as well as by architects and interior designers. As a rule, furniture designed for mass production is designed by industrial designers or furniture designers; the interior designer or architect usually designs those special pieces that are not readily available on the market or that must meet specific needs for a particular job. Those needs may be functional or aesthetic, and often a special chair or desk designed for a specific job will turn out to be so successful that the manufacturer will put such pieces into his regular line. The same basic situation holds generally true in the design of fabrics, lighting devices, floor covering, and all home-furnishing products. All design activities are basically similar, even though the training and education in the different design fields varies in emphasis. A talented and well-trained designer can easily move from one specialized area to another with little difficulty.
In the discussion of the general aspects of design, it is important to note that there is an important distinction between art and design. A designer is basically concerned with the solution of problems (be they functional, aesthetic, or psychological) that are presented to him. The artist is more concerned with emotive or expressive ideas and with the solution of problems he himself poses. A truly great or beautiful interior can indeed be called a work of art, but some would prefer to call such an interior a “great design.”
Aesthetic components of design
A general definition of beauty and aesthetic excellence would be difficult, but fortunately there are a number of generally accepted principles that can be used to achieve an understanding of the aesthetic considerations in design. One must note, however, that such understanding requires exposure and learning; an appreciation of any form of art needs such a background.
A thorough appreciation of design must go beyond the first impression. The first impression of the interior of a Gothic cathedral might be that it is somewhat dark or gloomy, but, by the time the visitor senses its majestic proportions, notices its beautiful stained glass windows and the effect of light, and begins to understand the superb structural system that permitted builders of cathedrals to achieve their lofty goals, he can truly begin to appreciate the overall aesthetic qualities.
One of the key considerations in any design must be the question of whether a design “works” or functions for its purpose. If a theatre has poor sight lines, poor acoustics, and insufficient means of entry and egress, it obviously does not work for its purpose, no matter how beautifully it might be decorated. Such a design could be considered good only if it were thought of abstractly as a kind of walk-in sculpture. In some cases the building is meant to be sculpture rather than architecture. The Statue of Liberty, for instance, is primarily intended as a monument, despite the fact that it contains rather tortured interior spaces.
To use function as the only aesthetic criterion would be limiting, but it certainly is a valid consideration to be kept in mind. Designers are often tempted to overdesign or “style” an object or interior rather than design it. Some of the most beautiful objects of the 20th century are beautiful because they were the result of purely functional considerations. It is conceivable that future art historians will consider a modern jet plane the crowning artistic achievement of the middle of this century, rather than any building, interior, or conscious art form.
The aesthetic response to an interior and its furnishings must take into consideration the social and economic conditions as well as the materials and technology of the time. The elegant or ornate interiors that are usually associated with the 18th and 19th centuries were appropriate to the social and economic conditions of the nobility or the wealthy bourgeois who were the original occupants. The chairs were designed for formal living, and the elaborately carved furnishings were designed to be cared for by many servants. Such an interior is alien to the 20th-century way of life and would be totally inappropriate for a contemporary middle class family. It would also be inappropriate to use modern materials and processes to imitate earlier materials and processes. Many manufacturers try desperately to make plastic look like wood, stone, or just about anything but plastic. All aesthetic criteria have something to do with honesty. Some aestheticians have compared beauty to truth, and there can be little doubt that honestly expressed functions and honestly expressed materials and manufacturing processes are far more beautiful than fakery and imitation.
All interiors, by definition, occur inside buildings and therefore have a very real relation to these buildings. The best interiors today, as well as in the past, are those that relate well in character and appropriateness to the particular building. The furnishings designed and scaled for spacious country homes or palaces would obviously be out of place in a small urban apartment or suburban home. A strong and unusual piece of architecture such as New York City’s Trans World Airlines terminal (at John F. Kennedy International Airport) could not be properly furnished with standard commercial furniture and products. The building, as well as the interiors, was conceived as a total design by the Finnish-born architect Eero Saarinen. Whether the observer agrees with the architect’s concept or not, he clearly senses the strong interrelationship between the exterior and the interior—and therefore the aesthetic unity and success. Another successful interior and building is the Ford Foundation headquarters in New York City, the work of architects Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo, with interiors by Warren Platner. The design is notable for its handsome spaces opening out toward an enclosed garden space. This obviously would not have been possible or appropriate if the view from the offices had been unattractive.
The interiors within indifferent or unattractive buildings must strive to make up for the lack of design qualities in the structures. Thus, it is sometimes necessary to ignore the ugliness of the building and create an inward-looking beauty if no architectural character exists.
The most difficult aesthetic consideration is the problem of appropriateness. The appropriate atmosphere or character of an interior must take all the foregoing points into consideration. The architectural character of the TWA terminal would make it inappropriate for use as an office building. The appropriateness of individual, more intimate, and small-scaled interiors is more subtle. The interior design of a discotheque would hardly be appropriate for a research library, and a college classroom would hardly provide the desired atmosphere for a kindergarten. Many of these responses and relationships are complex and have psychological as well as aesthetic factors.
Elements of design
Of all the component elements that together form a completed interior, the single most important element is space. Spaces can be exhilarating or depressing, cheerful or serene, all depending upon the use the designer has made of the various elements that form the whole. Space is, in modern times, a costly commodity. The beautiful space of the Gothic cathedral achieved its success through generous proportions and lofty heights. Due to the vast increase in construction costs in contemporary structures, spaces tend to be smaller and less generous; more skill on the part of the designer is required to give such limited spaces a particular atmosphere or character. On the other hand, sheer volume of space is not sufficient. There is hardly a larger space than the interior of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida, yet the aesthetic impact of that immense interior is negligible. A space need not be large and monumental to be aesthetically successful. The handling of mass and form even within a small structure can become exciting and beautiful. Frank Lloyd Wright was masterful in creating beautiful spatial sequences within residential-scale buildings. The Ford Foundation building is a relatively small structure among the huge buildings of New York City, yet the experience of that space is real and pleasurable.
Space can be thought of as the raw material which must be molded and shaped with the designers’ tools of colour, texture, light, and scale. The interrelationship of design elements can be clarified by visualizing the result if the interior of St. Peter’s in Rome were painted in garish colours or painted all black or sprayed with a foamy texture covering all surfaces or flooded with enormously intense floodlight that eliminated all play of dark and light. Obviously, any of these modifications would totally destroy the beauty and success of that space.
Colour is the quality of light reflected from an object to the human eye. When light falls upon an object, some of it is absorbed, and that which is not absorbed is reflected, and the apparent colour of an object depends upon the wavelength of the light that it reflects. The scientific attributes of colour and light in interior design are, however, less important than the skillful combination of colour values, hues, tones, shades, and above all textures. Although there can be no strict rules about colours and textures, it is well to remember the famous statement of the modern architect Mies van der Rohe that “less is more.” His Crown Hall at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, built in 1956, is elegant, understated, subtle, and is notable for its careful handling of textures and materials. To accept “less is more” as the sole guideline to design, however, would be a serious fallacy. Space, which is the essence of a meaningful interior, would be dull indeed if it were never varied—if there were no intimate spaces with low ceilings, in contrast to large spaces of greater height, and if spaces did not interrelate to provide the user with a sequential experience of moving from one to another. Monotony would also result if all interiors in a given building were of the same colour, material, and textural quality. Man needs variety and change.
The manipulation of space is a matter of both aesthetic and functional consideration. A small entrance vestibule in a building is needed to keep out wind and cold or heat and rain, yet it is equally important in providing a visual transition from outdoors to the interior of the building. The sheltered sleeping alcoves in early cave dwellings served not only to express man’s desire for smaller and more intimate spaces for personal use but gave protection from draft or cold.
Much in our man-made structures is built of natural materials, and it must be remembered that these materials have natural colours and textures that usually are superior to anything man can create artificially. Competent designers are very much aware of the innate qualities and textures of all materials, especially natural ones. For instance, a sensitive designer would choose a simple oil finish on wood to bring out the beauty and quality of the grain rather than use the once-fashionable high-gloss finish that tended to obscure and change the texture. Textures are important not only for their appearance but also for their sense of touch, and for their effect on light absorption or reflection. Abrasive surfaces or very rough plaster would obviously be unpleasant to the touch and possibly dangerous in an interior, depending upon the use the interior is intended for. Textures can evoke feelings of elegance (such as silks) or informality (such as rough, tweedy materials).
Light, both natural and artificial, is one of the most important design elements, but unless surfaces are appropriate in colour and texture, the control and effect of light will be lost. The beautiful quality of space in a Gothic cathedral is very much related to the handling of light. The source of daylight, high overhead or filtered through stained glass, creates exciting patterns of light and shade and a variety of intensities and pools of light. This same principle can be used in all interior spaces, and contemporary interiors often have skylights or high windows to provide variety and changing patterns of light. Artificial lighting is equally important, and, again, the same considerations of highlights, good overall illumination, and variety are important.
Concepts of design
The scale and proportion of any interior must always relate to the architecture within which the interior exists, but the other important factor in considering the scale of man’s environment is the human body. Throughout the ages, designers and architects have attempted to establish ideal proportions. The most famous of all axioms about proportion was the golden section, established by the ancient Greeks. According to this axiom, a line should be divided into two unequal parts, of which the first is to the second as the second is to the whole. Leonardo da Vinci developed a figure for the ideal man based on man’s navel as the centre of a circle enclosing man with outstretched arms. The French architect Le Corbusier developed a theory of proportion called Modulor, also based on a study of human proportions. Yet, at best, these rules are merely guidelines. They can never substitute for the eye and judgment of the designer, and it is reasonable to predict that attempts to make the all-powerful computer a substitute for the designer’s sensitivity are also bound to be far from perfect.
It was stated earlier that the need for a changing scale and spatial relationship in the environment seems a natural one, almost a physiological as well as a psychological one. Perhaps the need for “personal” environment and scale can best be understood by considering some extreme examples. To a person flying at 30,000 feet in an airplane, the scale of anything seen on the ground appears so small that he loses touch with the reality of objects. People who fear heights are rarely bothered by the view out of an airplane because the distance to the objects on the ground has transcended normal perceptions of scale. In a similar manner, a person’s reaction to the scale of a small house is quite different from his reaction to a large high-rise building. Details of pattern, texture, and material are accepted and expected in the small structure since they are in a meaningful scale with respect to man. By the same token, the sculptural ornaments on the tops of early skyscrapers seem absurd today.
Berlin Philharmonic Concert Hall
Berlin Philharmonic Concert Hall, designed by Hans Scharoun.
Almost all principles of design for interiors can be comprehended with clear analytic understanding and common sense, without regard to dogmatic rules. If a beautiful 18th-century breakfront (which might be more than eight feet tall) is placed in an apartment with a ceiling height just an inch higher than the piece of furniture, it would obviously look out of scale. If a space is planned so that all the heavy and massive pieces of furniture are pushed toward one end of the room, with nothing on the other side, the room would obviously look out of balance. Yet balance and symmetry applied as inviolate design principles would result in very formal, very traditional, and somewhat dull interiors. Careful symmetry was a generally accepted rule during the Renaissance, and in any classic building one can be sure to find a carefully balanced and symmetrical facade, just as most formal and classic interiors have rigidly balanced plans. It is now recognized that balance can also be based on asymmetry. Both architecture and interior design in the 20th century have consciously broken with the many rules handed down from past eras. It is more important for a building or space to be expressive of its purpose. At one time, it was traditional for a theatre, opera house, or concert hall to embody certain forms and shapes without any real consideration of sight lines, seating distance from the stage, or acoustics. On the other hand, the Berlin Philharmonic Concert Hall (1964) works beautifully as a concert hall and expresses its purpose and function clearly in an exciting and dynamic way (see photograph ).
Balance and symmetry, colour, pattern, and repetition used to be a matter of adherence to a tradition. Until fairly recently, many interiors were painted in dark colours, often ignoring the fact that light reflection was adversely affected and that no real contrast or sparkling accent was achieved. In many contemporary rooms, however, most surfaces are kept in neutral or light colours, possibly with one wall accented in a strong colour or texture. An interior with uniform overhead lighting might be an efficient work space but would lack the character that can be achieved by providing some accent lights in small areas.
The designer’s concern for honesty of materials and textures has brought about changing attitudes toward some of the conventional practices of interior decoration, such as the use of strongly patterned wallpapers and flowered prints. Any interior that has too many different patterns, too many textures, and too many repetitive features of any kind will appear overpowering, overly busy, overdesigned, and confusing. A designer often attempts to have a dominant theme or idea, be it colour, form, texture, or some rhythmic pattern. It must be noted also that design is influenced by changing attitudes and fashions. The movements in art and architecture of the 1950s and 1960s have influenced interior design in the direction of an emphasis on pure form, the absence of superfluous decoration, and expressiveness of materials. Recently, however, a kind of countermovement in the field of painting and sculpture has been influential. For instance, the use of large-scale graphic elements (supergraphics) in interiors has become popular and accepted, in spite of the fact that its very idea often consciously denies or destroys the visual clarity of existing architectural design features. Some of the leading designers in the United States and in several European countries have also become very interested in large patterns, rhythmic geometries, and decorative surfaces, and this may point toward a new trend (see ).
Most interiors consist of a series of interrelated spaces. It is important that the various spaces be designed in a sequential relationship to each other, not only in terms of planning but also in terms of the visual effect. A successful interior should be cohesive within each area and cohesive as a totality. It must above all relate to the building and to the architectural concept. A good example is the previously mentioned TWA terminal by Eero Saarinen. In spite of the extremely complex sculptural forms used, there is a sequence and clearly balanced rhythm that not only unifies the total composition but clearly relates it to the total architecture.
Interrelation of interior and exterior space. Harmony of landscape, architecture, and interior design: (top) exterior and (bottom) interior of the Glass House, New Canaan, Connecticut, designed by Philip Johnson, 1949.(more)
The best examples of design are those in which no visible difference exists between the interior and the exterior, between the building and its site, and between the many parts or spaces to each other and the total building. An example is the house of the American architect Philip Johnson in New Canaan, Connecticut. Johnson’s home and its setting appear effortlessly united, with individual parts subordinated to the success of the whole (see photograph ).
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