Modern Interiors Research Centre
News
Spaces and Places: British Design 1948-2012 at the V&A
Friday 11 - Saturday 12 May 2012
Hochhauser Auditorium, Sackler Centre, V&A
This conference explores the domestic spaces in which we live, the places in which we are educated, where we shop and how we travel from the perspective of world class British design in the post-war period. Speakers include: David Kynaston, Owen Hatherley, Thomas Heatherwick, Alison Clarke, Cheryl Buckley, Paul Gorman and Jules Lubbock.
In collaboration with the Modern Interiors Research Centre (MIRC), Kingston University.
Day 1: £30, £25 concessions, £15 student (ticket includes entry to Thomas Heatherwick evening talk, 19.00 - 20.00)
Day 2: £25, £20 concessions, £10 student
Each day requires booking separately. This event is part of the British Design Season at the V&A.
INTERIORS: DESIGN, ARCHITECTURE, CULTURE - Berg Publishers
2011 Best New Journal Award – presented by the Council of Editors of Learned Journals
Call for Articles – Special Issue (Vol. 4 Issue 1 - 2013)
DEGREES OF EPHEMERALITY: The Temporary Interior
The editors Anne Massey (Kingston University) and John Turpin (High Point University) invite contributions to the journal's 2013 special issue DEGREES OF EPHEMERALITY: The Temporary Interior. Nothing lasts forever, and because of their architectural shells, interiors are often perceived as being more permanent than they are. But this is an ideal, reinforced by notions of everlasting good design, promulgated partly by architectural modernism. Interiors may be altered or changed over time, even from day to day. But this usually affects only the character or function of the interior. What about the interiors whose purpose is specifically temporary, unplanned, or makeshift? What about the ephemeral vistas of international exhibitions? The prefabricated home? The Pop-Up shop or gallery? Mobile interiors, including cinemas, circuses and caravans? The inflatable structure? The 21st century has witnessed natural disasters that have wiped out entire communities requiring the need for immediate shelter for those displaced from their homes. Social unrest-whether driven by political or economic factors-has encouraged or required the development of tent cities. From refugee camps to parks appropriated for protest, temporary interiors are being created all over the world. This Special Issue of Interiors explores the design of these spaces and the unique relationship between the human and the interiors, whether created by the individual or standardized by a second party.
The editors welcome submissions of articles addressing the topic of the temporary interior broadly defined. Submissions reflecting the latest research on the interior from historians, practitioners and theorists are particularly welcomed. Principal articles of 5,000 to 7,000 words, including notes and references, with 4-8 illustrations are invited, and should be sent as an attachment to interiors@bloomsbury.com by May 15, 2012.
Further details of the Journal, including Notes for Contributors, are available at
http://www.bergjournals.com/interiors
If you have any queries about the Journal or about submitting an article, please contact us on this email address: interiors@bloomsbury.com
Anne Massey and John Turpin
Sylvia Lavin and Charles Rice in conversation
Presented by UTS Design/N in association with Kaldor Public Art Projects 25.
Saturday 24 March at 2.30pm, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Two architecture and design luminaries engage in a wide-ranging discussion considering philosophies of the interior with reference to Thomas Demand’s The Dailies, Kaldor Public Art Project 25. Further information at:
http://kaldorartprojects.org.au/event/free-talk-sylvia-lavin-and-charles-rice-in-conversation
Charles Rice, Head of School, Art & Design History speaks at the Association of Architectural Historians
In his recent lecture on 'Domestic Interiors Architecture' at the Association of Architectural Historians, Professor Charles Rice argues that the interior emerged historically at the moment when architecture became modern, problematising thus the assumption that architecture and the domestic interior enjoy a natural relation defined through housing and enclosure. For further details and video see: http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/VIDEO/lecture.php?ID=1728
Interiors wins prestigious prize
The Modern Interiors Research Centre is delighted to announce that the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ) has awarded 'Interiors' the title of Best New Journal during their annual award ceremony, which took place at the Modern Language Association convention, in Seattle earlier this month. 'Interiors: Design, Architecture, Culture' was launched two years ago and is co-edited by Professor Anne Massey (MIRC) and Dr John Turpin (North High Point University, NC, USA). We are truly thrilled that the journal has received such an accolade and would like to take this opportunity to thank the editors, contributors and subscribers for all helping to make this journal a success.
The Judges comments:
The judges distinguished Interiors as particularly exceptional and praised the journal for making “a lasting mark on the interdisciplinary study of interior design theory.”
They commented on the articles’ “cultural implications well beyond the traditional borders of the discipline” and expressed admiration for “the visuals as well as the text regarding spatial relationships, social attitudes, and design.”
“The writing [is] focused and accessible to the lay person as well as architects…. the printed publication offered [attractive] visuals illustrating salient issues and spoke to the historical reflection of structure as a symbol of culture, community, and personality.”
Performance, Fashion and the Modern Interior: From the Victorians to Today (20% Discount Flyer)
Fiona Fisher, Trevor Keeble, Patricia Lara-Betancourt, Brenda Martin
Four members of The Modern Interiors Research Centre have co-edited this awaited volume, companion to Designing the Modern Interior (2010).
Performance, Fashion and the Modern Interior examines the interior as a stage upon which modern life and lifestyles are consciously fashioned and performed, and from which modern identities are projected by and through design.
Scholars from Europe, Canada, America and Australia present a range of interior environments - domestic interiors, sets for stage and film, exhibition spaces, art galleries, hotel lobbies, cafés and retail spaces - to explore each as an intersection of fashion, lifestyle and performance. Sharing the thesis that the fashionably-dressed body and the interior can be seen as part of the same creative and expressive continuum, the essays highlight the ways in which interiors can give shape to and dramatise modern life.
About the Authors/Editors:
Fiona Fisher and Patricia Lara-Betancourt are Postdoctoral Researchers in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Kingston University, London.
Trevor Keeble is Associate Dean of the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Kingston University.
Brenda Martin is the Curator of the Dorich House Museum at Kingston University.
CONTENTS
General Introduction, Brenda Martin, Kingston University, UK
PART I: 1850-1900
Introduction
1. From Historic Dress to Modern Interiors: The Design Theory of Jakob von Falke, Eric Anderson, Kendall College of Art and Design, USA
2. Sensation and Interior Description in Nineteenth-Century London, Mark Taylor, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
3. Wearing and Inhabiting the Past: Promoting the Colonial Revival in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century America, Bridget A. May, Marymount University, USA
4. The Viennese Coffeehouse: A Legend in Performance, Tag Gronberg, University of London, UK
PART II: 1900-1940
Introduction
5. 'At Home' at the St James's: Dress, Décor and the Problem of Fashion in Edwardian Theatre, Christopher Breward, Victoria and Albert Museum, UK
6. Designing Lucile Ltd: Couture and the Modern Interior 1900-1920s, Samantha Erin Safer, Victoria and Albert Museum, UK
7. 'Paris, Hollywood': Viewing Parisian Modernity through the Lens of the Séeberger Brothers, 1909-39, Andrew Stephenson, University of East London, UK
8. Fashioning Thrift: Finding the Modern in Everyday Environments, Mary Anne Beecher, University of Manitoba, Canada
PART III: 1940-1970
Introduction
9. The Modern Home, Western Fashion and Feminine Identities in Mid-Twentieth-Century Turkey, Meltem Ö Gürel, Bilkent University, Turkey
10. Breakfast at Tiffany's: Performing Identity in Public and Private, Marilyn Cohen, Parsons The New School for Design, USA
11. Front and Back of House: Staging Queer Domesticity in New Canaan, Alice Friedman, Wellesley College, USA
12. Dressing the Part(y): 1950s Domestic Advice Books and the Studied Performance of Informal Domesticity in the UK and the US, Grace Lees-Maffei, University of Hertfordshire, UK
PART IV: 1970-PRESENT
Introduction
13. In-habiting Site: Contemporary Art Practices Within the Historic Interior, Helen Potkin, Kingston University, UK
14. Lobby Living: the Performance of Lifestyle, Nicky Ryan, University of the Arts, UK
15. 'Stay with Armani': Giorgio Armani and the Pursuit of Continuity, Stability and Legacy, John Potvin, University of Guelph, Canada
16. Designing for the Screen: the Creation of an Everyday Illusion, Teresa Lawler, Kingston University, UK
17. The Spectacular Form of Interior Architecture Under the New Conditions of Urban Space, Pierluigi Salvadeo, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
For further information see: http://www.bergpublishers.com/?tabid=15037
Interior: A State of Becoming, September 2012
Charles Rice has been confirmed as a keynote speaker for 'Interior: A State of Becoming', the Interior Design / Interior Architecture Educators Association of Australia (IDEA) symposium in Perth, Western Australia, in September 2012. Further details:
http://www.idea-edu.com/layout/set/print/Symposiums/2012-Interior-a-State-of-Becoming
Interiors: Design Architecture Culture - Berg Publishers
Call for Articles – Special Issue (Vol. 3 Issue 1 - 2012)
SPECIAL EFFECTS: TECHNOLOGY AND THE INTERIOR EXPERIENCE
The editors Anne Massey (Kingston University) and John Turpin (Washington State University) invite contributions to the journal’s 2012 special issue SPECIAL EFFECTS: Technology and the Interior Experience. This issue will examine the impact of technology on the development of the interior and the accompanying human experience. As the 21st century unfolds, technological additions, integrations and interventions have become more pervasive altering our interface with the built environment and greatly impacting our perception of the world around us: requiring us to face reality on the one hand, and yet allowing us to slip into immersive fantasies on the other. The divisions between outside and inside have become more porous, with virtual worlds and lived experience colliding and coalescing. Gadgets for the home; technology and sustainable living; shopping and atmosphere; projecting digital place and the development of gendered technologies are all areas that are open for analysis from an interior studies perspective.
The editors welcome submissions of articles addressing the topic of the interior and technology broadly defined. Submissions reflecting the latest research on the interior from historians, practitioners and theorists are particularly welcomed. Principal articles of 5,000 to 7,000 words, including notes and references, with 4-8 illustrations are invited, and should be sent as an attachment to interiors@bergpublishers.com by 31st July 2011. Further details of the Journal, including Notes for Contributors, are available at www.bergjournals.com/interiors
Book - Chair by Anne Massey
Chair (Reaktion, £16.95). ‘Are you sitting comfortably? Then it is time to deconstruct your chair. This generously illustrated entry in the "Objekt" series considers the meaning of chairs through history: as symbols of authority (bishops, university chairs, Mastermind), as promises of sex or leisure, and as causes of back pain, explaining along the way how the chair became so important as a "signature" object for new designers to show off their chops, rather than necessarily to gladden any putative rear.
Massey's story is told in thoughtful and invitingly well-upholstered prose, ranging from ancient Egypt to the "fetishistic" seating of postmodernity, encompassing Arts and Crafts, pushchairs, wheelchairs, famous chairs by Eames and Herman Miller, chairs electric or illuminated, chairs in painting (Van Gogh, Gwen John) and chairs frankly unsittable-on – even a huge (and quite haunting) heap of chairs as a street installation. By the end, any old chair seems plain weird. Perhaps I ought to try writing in a hammock.’ By Steven Poole, The Guardian, Sat 30 April 2011
Ocean Liner Posters - English version
Co-authored by Gabriele Cadringher and Professor Anne Massey, the English Version of ‘Ocean Liner Posters (Antique Collectors’ Club, 2011) tells the story of shipping companies and their ships through the art they produced - their posters. For a century, ocean liners were the only way to travel from one continent to another. Millions of passengers traveled on transatlantic routes: millionaires, occupying luxurious suites with dream decors, signed by the best artists of the time, and emigrants in search of a future, meager savings in hand, huddled in third class - all sharing their journeys with tourists, soldiers and traders on the largest form of transportation ever built.
This book charts the evolution of ocean liner posters from the first ship poster reproductions of the latter part of the nineteenth century, when the vessel's image appeared alongside information about the routes taken, through the Art Nouveau era, when the image of the ship began to take a key role in terms of visual importance. The Art Deco period allowed masters of poster art such as Adolphe Mouron Cassandre to create enduring works for the likes of Normandie or the Atlantique. The book continues tracing the timeline of these posters, through the postwar period until the demise of transatlantic routes, through to the sixties, which saw the poster being modernised.’
BBC Radio 4 programme - House Beautiful
Professor Penny Sparke and Dr Trevor Keeble were interviewed for this programme which was broadcast on Thursday 24th March 2011 at 11:30am. Discussing the V&A's exhibition, The Cult of Beauty, Laurence Llewelyn Bowen considered the effect of the Aesthetic movement on the home in Britain. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zm1l1
BBC 4 TV Series - Glamour’s Golden Age
Professors Penny Sparke and Anne Massey were interviewed for this BBC Series looking at the 1920s and 30s. ‘Hermione Norris narrates a three-part series on the 1920s and 30s, which creates a portrait of a golden age so daring, so influential, so exciting that it still shapes who we are today.
The decades between the world wars saw a cultural revolution in music, fashion, design and the arts. Mass media, mass production and the resulting mass exposure to an alluring, seductive glamour saw the world changing at a dizzying pace, amid which many of our modern obsessions were born.
The first part looks at how architecture and design both created and reflected the spirit of the time. The fun and frivolity of art deco sat alongside the pure functionality of modernism and helped democratise style. Streamlining followed, making sleek, sophisticated, elegant design part of ordinary people's everyday lives. At home, the radio became a beautiful object. In the urban environment a new aesthetic changed the way buildings looked, while planes, trains and automobiles started to shrink the world.
Featuring photographs of the Hoover Factory, Saltdean Lido, the Midland Hotel, the Savoy Theatre, the De La Warr Pavilion, the New Victoria Palace cinema, plus archive newsreel of the Mallard, the Queen Mary, the Schneider Trophy and Bluebird.’ For further details on the series see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ndzw0
MIRC at The Idea Symposium Brisbane, Australia 2010
The Australian Interior Design/Interior Architecture Educators Association recently invited Professor Penny Sparke to give one of the Keynote Addresses to their symposium Interior Spaces in Other Places hosted by the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane in February 2010. The conference aimed to provide a platform for international speakers and delegates to discuss the shift from ‘the centre to the margins’ of design theories and practices, and sought new perspectives on the adoption of Euro-American design ideas abroad and their return to their place of origin. Papers presented were:
Professor Sparke: The Modern Interior: A Euro-American paradigm (pdf)
Brenda Martin: Art Deco Moderne in Singapore in the 1930s domestic interior (pdf)
The Genius of Design BBC TWO Series – the book
Professor Penny Sparke published her book on The Genius of Design (published by Quadrille, Oct 2009) a series revealing the origins of everyday objects and paying tribute to those who created them. The BBC TWO five-part series of ‘The Genius of Design’ was originally broadcasted in October 2009.
Professor Penny Sparke on Radio 4 Woman's Hour -Bauhaus women. The forgotten women produced by the 20th Century’s most influential school of design
“When the Bauhaus art school opened in Germany in 1919 more women applied than men so why have we never heard of them? Names such as Paul Klee and Walter Kandinsky are familiar but what of Marianne Brandt or Annie Albers? Now a new book ‘Bauhaus Women’ from author Ulrike Mueller reveals the little known but significant contribution by female artists to the most influential design movement of the last century. Architectural critic, Jonathan Glancey and Professor of Design History, Penny Sparke combine to assess the Bauhaus women.” See link: Radio 4 Woman's Hour -Bauhaus women
Curator Brenda Martin on Radio 4 Woman's Hour – Dora Gordine
New spotlight shines on the long-forgotten sculptor
“The sculptor and artist Dora Gordine, spent her formative years in Estonia and rose to fame in Paris during the 1920s. Her colourful life took her all over the world, including Singapore and China, and by 1938 she was hailed as being on the way to 'becoming the finest woman sculptor in the world'.
Now, a retrospective exhibition of her work is about to open. It includes her sculpture, Happy Baby, which was made to mark the opening of the first mother and baby unit at Holloway Prison 60 years ago. It has recently been rediscovered and will be seen for the first time in half a century.
Jane discusses Dora's life and work with Dr. Jonathan Black, Art Historian at Kingston University; and Brenda Martin, Curator at the Dorich House Museum.” See link: Radio 4 Woman's Hour -Dora Gordine
