Politicizing the Interior

Author: Liz Teston Year: 2018 Source type: chapter (The Interior Architecture Theory Reader, ed. Gregory Marinic, Routledge) Raw file: raw/chapters/teston_2018-politicizing-the-interior.md

Summary

Teston's chapter opens the political register of interior architectural theory, which she identifies as "a relatively underrepresented – yet growing – area of inquiry." Borrowing cultural theory from urban design and anthropology, it argues that "the interior is comprised of both spatial and political experiences," that the disciplinary boundary between interior architecture and urban design is not a hard edge but a frontier — "a liminal zone; it has thickness" — across which perspectives (Augé's non-place, the Situationists' psychogeographic methods) should be appropriated. Through Augé, de Certeau, and the Situationist International, the chapter repositions the interior's everyday, experiential dimension as political: designers have "the responsibility to promote access to design as a basic human right," grounded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Key Claims

Interior architectural theory on the political is underrepresented: of ~195 CIDA-accredited programs in North America, only fourteen percent grant diplomas in interior architecture (note 1, calculated September 13, 2017); the name "interior architecture" was publicly debated at the 2009 IDEC conference (White, note 2).
Disciplinary geography: architecture is distinguished from interior architecture by "external and scalar characteristics," and formal exploration is "more likely" in architecture, while in interior architecture "space is privileged"; at the urban scale "political and geometric forces often rule," at the interior-design scale "individual and aesthetic influences prevail" (the reading nook's haptic textures, luminance, ergonomic furnishings).
Award-jury evidence of disciplinary identity: AIA Interior Architecture Award jurors valued the Beats by Dre HQ (Bestor Architecture) for spatial experience ("warm and inviting – a place where we would like to work"); Interior Design magazine's "Best of Year" critics emphasized the placemaking aesthetics of IMG Worldwide Offices (Studios Architecture) — materiality and furnishings.
The frontier thesis: "a frontier is the outer limits or boundaries of a country, territory, or discipline… a frontier is, in fact, a liminal zone; it has thickness. We often assume there is a hard line between each design discipline, but in reality the defined edge is imaginary." "Each discipline should make use of the broader frontiers of its neighbors."
Following Terry Meade, interior designers "often overlook critical discussions about the sociopolitical issues occurring in the built environment" — because most interior spaces are private and "not a part of the commons"; "This inattention to the concerns of urban society is a cavity in everyday design practice."
Emotional culture: emotions have "a distinct social character, caused by and occurring within social situations"; "The emotional culture of a people embodies and communicates the principles of that society" (Yang, note 6); "The shared constitutional order of the urban fabric persists while the built environment is obliterated, reimagined, and revered. The collective memory remains" (Staiger & Steiner, note 7).
Place/space theory transmission: de Certeau's place (stasis, ordered, codified) vs anthropological space (experiential); Augé's place "deposits layers of events, histories, and cultures to reinforce the inertia of place," while his space is "abstract – occupied by people, a physical void, or a time interval." Teston's normative version: space should be considered "in terms of a people-activated zone made by human interaction" — two people initially form a space, expanding to group, built environment, city, society.
Non-place definition: "characterized as a postmodern, generic space occupied by people for a predetermined reason" — shopping malls and airports are related to "in a detached, solitary manner"; "Non-places take our collective identity and twist it into a heterotopic, transactional experience."
The interiority claim: "we could speculate that non-places allow for experiences of psychological interiority. The contemporary physical experience of space is less subjective, thus allowing for greater introspection and the development of an internal narrative" — reinforced by "society's obsession with social networking and uninterrupted engagement with online media." Key question: "what is the phenomenology of physical places when one's identity exists in a smartphone?"
Online identity is curated: "an online identity may not be an everyday identity, but a character projected to others"; yet people "have grown more political about the near environment" through open-sourced global connectivity.
Micro-subversion and consumption: cultural theorists "elevate the micro-subversions of the everyday" (the stolen hotel shampoo, the screened phone call) and commodity consumption "emits a signal representing our chosen identity"; both models "imply that everyday life is dull, yet by researching the commonplace we elevate it." "Design is embedded in the everyday and has intrinsic value."
The elevation thesis: studying the aesthetics of the mundane and non-place reveals that "informal actions have value: everyday objects, underserved populations, and modestly detailed buildings" — and "the authenticity and the capacity of 'placeness' in the most ordinary of non-places."
Situationist method transfer: the SI (Debord, Jorn, Constant) derived through the city — "experiential, unplanned (and often alcohol-fueled) multi-day journeys" — using psychogeography (Debord: the "precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment… on the emotions and behavior of individuals") "to expose the means by which conventional urban design controls everyday life and the ways in which this control can be exposed and subverted." Top-down public housing "stifled psychogeographic aspects of the city and individual creativity."
The SI is "particularly compelling within the context of political interior architecture, because it provides a model for subversion of conventional urban design" — political yet experiential, concerned with "spaces of movement" from "an experiential and personal standpoint."
Human-rights grounding: UDHR (1948), Articles 25(1) and 27(1) — rights to housing, health, community, the arts; "everyone matters and each person should be able to access well-designed places and experiences. Interiors shape lives in the most fundamental and personal way."
Design status of everything: "The built environment is a part of our collective memory, whether canonical or mundane. Memory and cultural identity are inextricably linked. That concept gives everyday objects, like a recycling center or a gallon of milk, a design status that is not always initially evident. Everything is designed and has value." "As designers, we have the responsibility to promote access to design as a basic human right."
Future trajectories for politicizing the interior: "the conflict between material culture and sustainability, issues of parity in space-related civil rights acts, the impact of corporate design standards on experience and non-place, and the influence of pop culture and lowbrow design in interiors."

Connections

Concepts: politicizing-the-interior, disciplinary-frontiers, right-to-design, interior-architecture, non-places, psychogeography, derive, interiority, everyday-life, heterotopia, memory, spectacle, commons, unitary-urbanism, strategy-and-tactic, right-to-the-city, consumerism Authors: teston-liz, auge-marc, debord-guy, de-certeau-michel, marinic-gregory, constant, rossi-aldo Debates: interior-design-vs-architecture, power-and-space, everyday-vs-iconic-architecture, theory-of-the-everyday, spectacle-vs-function Related source notes: source-notes/taylor-2018-shape-shifting-dynamic-design (Augé's non-place in the interior-theoretical register), source-notes/ardener-2006-partition-of-space (spatial politics of bounded territory), source-notes/andreotti-1999-unitary-urbanism (Situationist method), source-notes/de-certeau-1984-practice-of-everyday-life (place vs anthropological space), source-notes/jones-moreno-carranco-2007-megaprojects (non-places, "excess")

Direct Quotes

"Interior architectural theory, particularly as it pertains to the political, is a relatively underrepresented – yet growing – area of inquiry." (Introduction)

"By acknowledging the blurred edge between the territories of interior architecture and urban design, this chapter suggests that the interior is comprised of both spatial and political experiences." (Introduction)

"A frontier is the outer limits or boundaries of a country, territory, or discipline. It could easily be misconstrued as a defined edge… but a frontier is, in fact, a liminal zone; it has thickness. We often assume there is a hard line between each design discipline, but in reality the defined edge is imaginary." (Disciplinary geography)

"Each discipline should make use of the broader frontiers of its neighbors." (Disciplinary geography)

"Designers may feel that they are absolved from allegiance to meeting the collective demands of the public, but the discipline is neglecting a varied and stimulating discourse. This inattention to the concerns of urban society is a cavity in everyday design practice." (Disciplinary geography)

"The emotional culture of a people embodies and communicates the principles of that society." (Cultural geography, citing Yang)

"The shared constitutional order of the urban fabric persists while the built environment is obliterated, reimagined, and revered. The collective memory remains." (Cultural geography, citing Staiger & Steiner)

"Augé expands his theory of place as a derivative of de Certeau's anthropological spaces." (Cultural geography)

"He describes space as abstract – occupied by people, a physical void, or a time interval." (Cultural geography)

"By extension, Augé's non-place is characterized as a postmodern, generic space occupied by people for a predetermined reason." (Cultural geography)

"Non-places take our collective identity and twist it into a heterotopic, transactional experience." (Cultural geography)

"We could speculate that non-places allow for experiences of psychological interiority. The contemporary physical experience of space is less subjective, thus allowing for greater introspection and the development of an internal narrative." (Cultural geography)

"In light of this, what is the phenomenology of physical places when one's identity exists in a smartphone?" (Cultural geography)

"Regardless, an online identity may not be an everyday identity, but a character projected to others. Online, people represent their curated identity." (Cultural geography)

"Consider the defiant pleasure you might experience in covertly stealing shampoo from a business hotel, or the sense of control that you feel in screening your phone calls." (Cultural geography)

"Both of these approaches to consumerism imply that everyday life is dull, yet by researching the commonplace we elevate it." (Cultural geography)

"Design is embedded in the everyday and has intrinsic value. Studying the aesthetics of the mundane and non-place enhances the development of interior architectural theory. It reveals that informal actions have value: everyday objects, underserved populations, and modestly detailed buildings." (Cultural geography)

"By analyzing the everyday, we can see the authenticity and the capacity of 'placeness' in the most ordinary of non-places." (Cultural geography)

"These dérives were used to question the nature of urbanism, consumerism, and the individual." (Urban geography)

"Public housing developments were of particular concern, and they suggested that the top-down design approach stifled psychogeographic aspects of the city and individual creativity." (Urban geography)

"The work of the Situationists is particularly compelling within the context of political interior architecture, because it provides a model for subversion of conventional urban design." (Urban geography)

"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care and necessary social services…" (Urban geography, quoting UDHR Article 25(1))

"Interiors shape lives in the most fundamental and personal way. The built environment is a part of our collective memory, whether canonical or mundane." (Urban geography)

"Everything is designed and has value. As designers, we have the responsibility to promote access to design as a basic human right." (Urban geography)

"We acknowledge the interior as both spatial and political, and that interior architecture concerns itself primarily with the human experience of the interior volume." (Conclusion)

"There are several potential trajectories for future research into politicizing the interior: the conflict between material culture and sustainability, issues of parity in space-related civil rights acts, the impact of corporate design standards on experience and non-place, and the influence of pop culture and lowbrow design in interiors." (Conclusion)

Open Questions

What is "the phenomenology of the non-place"? Teston poses this twice and leaves it open — how subjective is the non-place user's experience, and how much separation is there between Augé's objective conditions of space and the subjective experiences of place?
Can the Situationists' urban methods (dérive, psychogeography) be genuinely transposed to the interior volume, or do they presuppose the city's scale of unplanned movement? What would a dérive through a non-place interior yield?
If "online identity… is a character projected to others," does curated digital identity deepen non-place interiority or supply a new, para-everyday identity that changes how people become "political about the near environment"?
Teston's four trajectories — material culture vs sustainability, parity in space-related civil rights, corporate design standards and non-place, pop/lowbrow design — are all unstaged research programs. Which has the richest wiki support already (corporate design standards: non-places, junkspace) and which the least?
Does grounding design access in the UDHR give the everyday interior a stronger political claim than the micro-subversion tradition Teston half-mocks — and is there tension between "everything is designed and has value" (commodity signalling) and design as a right rather than a consumption choice?