Response to Imagined Interiors

Chapter 9, The Twentieth-Century Architectural Interior: representing Modernity
by Tim Benton

1. This essay focused on how the development of photography and the wider dissemination of architectural information in various reviews and publications changed the way architects presented their designs. This was because "...until the advent of photography...the audience of the architecture was the user. With photography, the illustrated magazine, and tourism, architecture's reception began to occur through an additional social reform: consumption." (Benton, 2006, p.221).


2. I was interested to learn that the history of photography runs almost in parallel with that of Modernist design and the two have had a symbiotic relationship. The change in focus to the design and presentation of interiors that showed up well in black and white photographs became a key focusing point for architects essentially removing the 'decorative' and 'lived in' elements from the presentation of the finished works. This pared back visual aesthetic dovetailed with with streamlined tenets of modernism, "...forms of representation developed by Modernism not only excluded children (and people in general) from photographs but also any messy signs of their presence." (Benton, 2006, p.226)


3. The focus of the essay is on exhibition spaces and the domestic interior as as exhibition rather than a lived in environment. Primacy was given to demonstrations of the architects adherance to modernist ideals such as the structural rationalism of the space and its social utility. This was displayed through (usually white) uninterrupted facades, exposure of structural support, streamlined and industrial furnishings and the absolute exclusion of the human presence.

There is a tension in modern architecture that is described in the article by Benton as "...the eternal conflict in architectural interiors between 'Art' and Life', that is, between the expectations of, and aesthetic ambitions of the architects and the lived experience of the inhabitants." (Benton, 2006, p. 223) Benton saw this manifesting as  "...success for an architect in the twentieth century depend[ing] more on on creating exhibitable or publishable plans, renderings, models, installations and above all photographs than on meeting the practical and psychological needs of clients." (Benton, 2006, p. 223) 

There is a hangover in this form of representation to this day in which homes photographed for interiors and architectural magazines are styled and often redecorated for shoots and the detritus of everyday life is swept away. However, there are often shots of the owner and interviews with them about the space as the commitment to an unyielding architects vision for the overall design of a space has given way to a more personal vision than values the aesthetics and belongings of the owners as much, if not more, than the imposed style of an architect or designer.


4.  A move toward rationalism and secularism that began with the enlightenment came to fruition in the twentieth century. The beginning of this century saw rapid increases in technology and industrial processes that shaped the modernist aesthetic and responded to the rationalism of scientific and social thought in a concrete manner through the production and dissemination of modular and ready made building materials and furnishings. In this way the stripped back, rationalised  interiors reflected wider social norms of the time.



References

Aynsely, Jeremy & Grant, Charlotte (eds.) Imagined Interiors: Representing the Domestic Space since the Renaissance. London: V & A Publications, 2006, p. 220 - 242.