The Story of the Interior: How We Have Shaped Rooms and How They Shape Us - Hardcover

by Graeme Brooker (Author)

The majority of our lives are spent indoors, yet we rarely, if ever, stop to ask ourselves the origins or reasons behind the ideas and forms of our interior spaces. From traditional nomadic dwellings to state-of-the-art airports, The Story of the Interior explores an exciting array of inside spaces from around the world to reveal how the fundamental elements of a room have evolved and endured.

Organized in three parts--The Room, The Private Interior, and The Public Interior--the book presents a fascinating account of how the interior has been conceived and thought of from antiquity to the present day. By calling to attention the most basic elements of inside space--walls, doors, windows, furniture, ambience to name a few--this engaging exploration delves into how private and public interiors actively shape the way we live, work, learn, and play.

Using a thematic approach, author Graeme Brooker digs into the elements of the interior found in both historic spaces and cutting-edge contemporary interiors. The book spans a wide range of iconic and off beat examples. Brooker deftly guides readers through interiors as diverse as Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, Olafur Eliasson's The weather project, the Prada store in Marfa, Texas, and Sou Fujimoto's NA House, as well as the rock-cut Buddhist temples of India, medieval European castles, and ancient Egyptian tombs, to unveil the drastically different and surprisingly similar spaces that surround us. The result is a fascinating tour of global interiors, tracing the genesis and evolution of these spaces and how they help us understand human presence and behavior.

Back Jacket

Why do we live the way we do? We spend our lives indoors--at home or at work, in stores and train stations, museums and restaurants--but how often do we stop to consider the ideas behind and the forms of the spaces around us? The Story of the Interior does just this, tracing how interiors have evolved and revealing how they influence the way we live, work, learn, and play.

Educator and design writer Graeme Brooker delves into the history of the room and the cultural, social, and technological factors that have given rise to spaces as diverse as nomadic dwellings, state-of-the-art airports, monumental temples, baroque palaces, high-rise apartments, and high fashion boutiques. The result is a dazzling global tour of interiors that points out the drastically different and surprisingly similar spaces we inhabit. A wealth of examples, both ancient and modern, iconic and offbeat, helps us understand how we shape our indoor environments and how they shape us.

Discover Jayne Mansfield's pink heart-adorned bathroom; the state bedroom of Louis XIV; the postmodern boxing ring in Karl Lagerfeld's Monaco apartment; Maharaja Ranjit Singh's Palace of Mirrors; and the dining room designed by Whistler that started a bitter feud.

Visit a floating tea room in Copenhagen; a bath with a view at a Shanghai hotel; the ancient bazaars and caravanserais of T?rkiye; the VIP lounge at the Santiago International Airport; and a power plant turned into an extreme sports venue in South Africa.

Consider the surprising roots of familiar terms, such as the corridor (a place for running) and the boudoir (a place for sulking); what it is to build a "wall" whether Neolithic standing stones or Japanese paper shoji; the interior features we take for granted from stairs and windows to electric lighting and the revolving door.