Proximities

Author: Mark Taylor & Julieanna Preston (eds.) Year: 2006 Source type: chapter (introduction to Intimus: Interior Design Theory Reader, John Wiley & Sons)

Raw file: raw/chapters/taylor-preston-2006-proximities.md

Summary

"Proximities" is the editors' introduction to Intimus: Interior Design Theory Reader (Taylor & Preston, Wiley 2006) — the first sustained attempt to assemble a theoretical canon (or rather, an explicitly anti-canon) for interior design as an emerging discipline. The editors argue that interior design draws its theory from beyond architectural canons — from cultural geography, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and gender studies — and that the interior and its design constitute "a wider field of cultural production." The chapter is anchored by a close reading of a single photograph (William Lawrence Bottomley's "A Perfect Example of Dressing-Table Hidden Behind Paneling When Not in Use," from Emily Post's The Personality of a House, 1945), which stages the book's central dialogue between the abstract/immaterial and the concrete/phenomenal. The editors organise the reader through a rhizomatic matrix rather than chronology or theme, positioning each text along disciplinary axes (social, political, philosophical, technological, gender, psychological) and practice issues (material, colour, light, space, decoration, furnishing). (Note: the raw file's header reads "Intumus: Interior Design Reader" — an OCR corruption of the book's actual title, "Intimus: Interior Design Theory Reader.")

Key Claims

Interior design, as an emerging discipline, needs a body of theory specific to its creative practice; surveys of university programmes found no distinct, repeating set of theoretical readings, so theory must be drawn from across several disciplines "beyond architectural canons and interior design's marginalisation within that discourse" (p. 6).
Theory of the interior must be sought for "the specifics of inhabitation and bodily presence," which confirms that "the interior and its design constitute a wider field of cultural production" (p. 6).
Citing Deleuze-commentator Elizabeth Grosz, there can be no inside without some form of demarcation distinguishing the outer from the inner — the interior is impossible without an architectural or other enframing (p. 6).
The dressing-table photograph is read as a theoretical scene: a woman's dressing-table hidden behind panelled walls, ornamented with cosmological signs ("Cosmos becomes cosmetic," p. 7). The niche behind the doors is "a space within the wall" — an inhabited poché where "What appears as a small enclosure is a mode of liberation" (p. 7): what looks like self-indulgent decoration "may be found to be a sign of self-expression" (p. 8).
The alcove reframes space: "While the architectural room is wrapped with abstract notions of time and space, this small alcove inhabits its periphery as a pocket where body is central, maybe even fluid, and space is temporal, perhaps even subjective" (p. 8). The room "seems to be dressed in parity to the self-reflective body that inhabits it" (p. 7).
The book's organising method is a matrix or diagram — "rhizomatic, networked or diagrammatic" — which "foster[s] the formation of connections among notions as opposed to defining or creating singular isolated entities" (p. 8). See rhizomatic-matrix.
The matrix deliberately refuses disciplinary hegemony: order is made "not towards the specificity or hegemony of a discipline, but rather to turn outwards and mobilise forces of action and imagination between matter and information" (p. 8). Each text is positioned relative to disciplinary bodies of knowledge (social, political, philosophical, technological, gender, psychological) and relative to practice issues (material, colour, light, space, decoration, furnishing); the matrix is a "surveying instrument and ordering device with the purpose to catalyse cross- and inter-disciplinary insights" (pp. 8–9).
On what counts as theory: adopting Borden & Rendell's nine epistemological tendencies from Intersections (2000), theory is defined expansively and inclusively — enough to admit turn-of-the-century advice literature and historical analyses of place and activity; "the method of inquiry or the analytical device employed is of primary concern" (p. 9).
Disciplines write theory in different styles and genres (archaeology surveys cultural material; psychology compares; architectural theory relies on narrative, field studies or phenomenological discourse on perception); the differences do not form "an equal and level 'reading' field," but including them is a deliberate defence of the field "as plural, multiplicitous and interdisciplinary" (p. 10). See interdisciplinarity.
No theory of interior design can escape feminism, gender, race and sexuality "if not because of interior design's own history as a practice stemming from the upholsterer's trade then for its alliances (or stereotype associations) with domestic, residential and feminine decorative practice" (p. 10).
"The historical identification of women with the domestic interior, and subsequent cultural conflation of women, dress and the interior environment are subject to discourses on power" (p. 10). These issues "move beyond the structure/ornament dialectic that so fervently governs many architectural treatises."
What is at stake in the ornament debate is "not just the suppression of ornament but the identification of the female body with the domestic and with the decorative, which forms a lingering and significant field of inquiry, and perhaps prejudice, towards what defines interior design historically" (p. 10).
Recent feminist and human-geographic studies examine "sexed corporeality" — how a body's desires and capacities are produced by specific spaces; the identification of specific space to specific body is what any theory of the interior needs "to engage with immanence, rather than masculine transcendent values" (p. 11). Queer theory is used "not to reify the lesbian or homosexual but to discuss complexities of public and private space and the containment of an identity," challenging "traditional 'normal' ontologies of home, for example, home, privacy and publicity" — "not to substitute one universalising value for another, but to destabilise implicit homogeneities" (p. 11).
The reader names an interdisciplinary cluster, interiority: "the conscious and reflexive awareness of self, identity, community and others within a social environment… the innerness of interior design as that which is felt and projected upon and within the interior environment via body as a culturally lived organism" (p. 11).
A second constellation explores "all that is concrete, material and objectified": objects and artefacts "frame interior spaces, influence behaviour, reflect imagination and mark prevailing political and social notions of the time" (p. 11); rooms of plush textiles and gilded wallpaper "are indexical indicators of the infrastructure of inhabitation… it is the latent effect that is seething behind the detail" (p. 11).
The historiography of the interior (Mario Praz, Charlotte Gere, Peter Thornton) tends to perpetuate "style-manual documentation of furnishings and accessories," contributing to "the suppression and relegation of the decorative to a lesser understood architectural activity" (p. 11) — while nonetheless modelling "the predisposition for humans to decorate as an inherent impulse of self-expression" (p. 11). See the-decorative.
Taste is "ever-changing and elusive," with "its likely alliance to consumption and the acquisition of possessions as a symbol of social status"; tasteful room design is "subjectively grounded but socially influenced," vacillating between harmony/repose and eclecticism (p. 12). See taste.
Furniture operates as "a bodily interface" that "dictates posture" and "as a signifier of social gathering… indicates a performative event"; interior objects are "neither neutral nor nullifying" — even inert matter "absorb[s] and exert[s] influence over the spatial environment" (p. 12).
Modernism and modernist paradigms are subjected to cultural and aesthetic criticism: "transcendent metaphors of order and function" are put to philosophical inquiry "in order to engage the mundane and the ordinary and, subsequently, reframe the discussion through specificity and the implication of the body in space" (p. 12).
The collected texts are "not foundational" — they "do not recognise or declare an originary state or propose any fundamental canon"; the volume "refuses both chronologic and thematic structure," its connectivity "at once distant, by discipline, and intimate, by content" (p. 13).

Connections

Concepts: interiority · domestic-interior · the-decorative · gender-and-the-interior · taste · interdisciplinarity · architectural-ornament · dwelling · embodiment · lived-body · Poché · symbolic-ecology · consumerism · atmosphere · everyday-life · space Methods: rhizomatic-matrix Authors: Taylor & Preston · Deleuze (the rhizomatic; Grosz's cited essay "Chaos, Territory, Art") Debates: ornament-vs-purity — the chapter re-reads the structure/ornament dialectic as a gendered discourse of power Related source notes: Bachelard — The Dialectics of Outside and Inside (the Intimus anthology's Bachelard selection, framed by this introduction's authors) · Ardener — The Partition of Space (the anthology's anthropological opening text) · Spuybroek — Habit and Inhabit, Stuff and Trash (poché, inhabitation as appropriation) · Csikszentmihalyi — Design and Order in Everyday Life (household objects as symbols of the self) · Vidler — The Architectural Uncanny (the unhomely interior) · Heller — Everyday Life (home and the everyday) · Felski — The Invention of Everyday Life (home, repetition, habit)

Direct Quotes

"Our search for theory related to the specifics of inhabitation and bodily presence confirms that the interior and its design constitute a wider field of cultural production." (p. 6)

"Elizabeth Grosz has discussed the impossibility of having an inside without some form of demarcation that distinguishes the outer from the inner." (p. 6)

"Cosmos becomes cosmetic." (p. 7)

"How might this 'PERFECT EXAMPLE OF DRESSING-TABLE HIDDEN BEHIND PANELING WHEN NOT IN USE' be physically, socially and theoretically constructed?" (p. 7)

"The room seems to be dressed in parity to the self-reflective body that inhabits it." (p. 7)

"What appears as a small enclosure is a mode of liberation." (p. 7)

"While the architectural room is wrapped with abstract notions of time and space, this small alcove inhabits its periphery as a pocket where body is central, maybe even fluid, and space is temporal, perhaps even subjective." (p. 8)

"Described in other theoretical discourse as rhizomatic, networked or diagrammatic, matrices foster the formation of connections among notions as opposed to defining or creating singular isolated entities." (p. 8)

"Conceptually, such order is made not towards the specificity or hegemony of a discipline, but rather to turn outwards and mobilise forces of action and imagination between matter and information." (p. 8)

"the matrix is intended to be used as a surveying instrument and ordering device with the purpose to catalyse cross- and inter-disciplinary insights." (p. 9)

"For if theory is conditioned by inquiries and speculation about what occurs between events, situations, objects and actions, then the method of inquiry or the analytical device employed is of primary concern." (p. 9)

"we felt that it was important to include texts of different writing styles and genres not only to demonstrate Borden and Rendell's analysis of critical theory but also to defend the field as plural, multiplicitous and interdisciplinary." (p. 10)

"Most certainly, any book on theory surrounding interior design can not escape discussion about feminism, gender, race and sexuality, if not because of interior design's own history as a practice stemming from the upholsterer's trade then for its alliances (or stereotype associations) with domestic, residential and feminine decorative practice." (p. 10)

"The historical identification of women with the domestic interior, and subsequent cultural conflation of women, dress and the interior environment are subject to discourses on power." (p. 10)

"What is being provoked here is not just the suppression of ornament but the identification of the female body with the domestic and with the decorative, which forms a lingering and significant field of inquiry, and perhaps prejudice, towards what defines interior design historically." (p. 10)

"It is this identification of specific space to specific body that is relevant to any theorising of the interior that intends engaging with immanence, rather than masculine transcendent values." (p. 11)

"Although this example links numerous 'body' issues, it also veers in the direction of interiority – the conscious and reflexive awareness of self, identity, community and others within a social environment." (p. 11)

"this cluster of associated points in the interdisciplinary arena of 'interiority' examines the innerness of interior design as that which is felt and projected upon and within the interior environment via body as a culturally lived organism." (p. 11)

"rooms comprising plush textiles, gilded frames, polished floors and floriated wallpaper are indexical indicators of the infrastructure of inhabitation." (p. 11)

"such works model the predisposition for humans to decorate as an inherent impulse of self-expression." (p. 11)

"What lingers about this material is the manner in which things, objects and artefacts frame interior spaces, influence behaviour, reflect imagination and mark prevailing political and social notions of the time." (p. 11)

"Such works speak to the ever-changing and elusive nature of taste, and its likely alliance to consumption and the acquisition of possessions as a symbol of social status." (p. 12)

"Furniture, as a bodily interface, dictates posture and as a signifier of social gathering it indicates a performative event. We are made acutely aware that such interior objects are neither neutral nor nullifying." (p. 12)

"These essays subject transcendent metaphors of order and function to philosophical inquiry in order to engage the mundane and the ordinary and, subsequently, reframe the discussion through specificity and the implication of the body in space." (p. 12)

"They are not foundational in that they do not recognise or declare an originary state or propose any fundamental canon." (p. 13)

"Connectivity to do with inhabitation and spatial presence as outlined in the examples above is at once distant, by discipline, and intimate, by content." (p. 13)

Open Questions

Can the "theoretical domain of interior design" hold together as a field, or does its explicit refusal of canons and foundations leave it perpetually parasitic on other disciplines' theory?
How does the gendered conflation of women, dress and the domestic interior play out in interior design practice rather than historiography — are the "impacted by them" effects the editors claim traceable in built work?
Does the matrix methodology genuinely produce cross-disciplinary insight, or is its "productive leaps generated by rules" just a fig leaf for editorial discretion? The editors admit "the multiple locations in which each text could be placed" (p. 8).
How would the interiority cluster (philosophy/psychology of innerness) dialogue with the psychoanalytic interior (Freud's study, Berggasse 19) and Bachelard's poetics of intimate space?
What happens to the "structure/ornament dialectic" when ornament is re-read as gendered suppression — can architectural treatises absorb that critique, or does it require a different discipline (interior design) altogether?