Interior Decorators such as Elsie de Wolfe, Eleanor McMillen Brown, and Dorothy Draper helped to pave the way for the Interior Design profession today. Their influential decisions to stray away from the Victorian style of design helped guide both the interior decorating profession, as well as architects who no longer wanted to design in the bulky and cluttered Victorian Style.
Elsie de Wolfe designed during the Victorian movement, however “had adopted the 1890’s preference for Neoclassicism” (Smith, 22). Unlike the cluttered and dark interiors of an average Victorian interior, her interiors were, “in the words of one visitor, ‘[models] of simplicity’” (Smith, 20). She redecorated the once cluttered dining room of her apartment in the 1890’s, stripping away the heavy Victorian decoration and replacing it with furniture and accessories to lighten the room. “Eleanor Brown’s style was based on French classicism, the prevailing taste in American society that had been established by Elsie De Wolfe twenty years before” (Smith, 100). Contrary to many of the decorators of her time, she also designed in the Directoire and English Regency style (Smith, 100), as French and English interiors were where she drew a lot of her inspiration from. In 1928, Brown designed an apartment for herself that included many styles, including Greek revival, Classical Revival, and even some late-Art Deco design. Dorothy Draper designed in the “classical late-Art Deco, Greek-Egyptian” (Smith, 105) style. In the 1930’s, she also started to design in the Neo-Baroque style. She “was the first American woman decorator to concentrate on nonresidential design” (Smith, 104). “According to Carlton Varney,… ‘Draper revolutionized the concept of design by breaking away ...
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...ian Science Monitor, 01 Dec. 1982. Web. 26 Mar. 2014. .
Smith, C. Ray. Interior Design in 20th-century America: A History. New York: Harper & Row, 1987. Web. 26 Mar. 2014. .
Vogel, Carol. "Eleanor Brown Is Dead at 100; Interior Designer Pioneered Field." The New York Times. The New York Times, 31 Jan. 1991. Web. 26 Mar. 2014. .
“Women of Influence.” Hospitality Design 32.5 (2010): 79. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 26 Mar. 2014.
She is widely credited with developing the style of interior decoration known as “American Country Style”. Sister never knew her grandmother because she died shortly after she was born, but she recalls her grandparent’s house as “large, dark and musty and full of polar bear rugs, moose heads and antlers everywhere”. Her parents were wealthy and spent a considerable amount of money on trips to Europe, in hope that the exposure of art and architecture would improve their children’s education. Her style has been called baroque and freewheeling.
"American Cultural History - The Twentieth Century." Lone Star College-Kingwood Library Home Page. Web. 07 May 2010. .
Gehry draws his inspiration from famous paintings such as the Madonna and Child which he qualifies as a “strategy for architecture” (Friedman M. , 2003, p. 42) and which he used as an inspiration for a project in Mexico . Through his interpretation of the paintings and artwork, Gehry looked for a new kind of architecture. His search for a new type of architecture culminated in 1978 with his own house in Santa Monica. What was once a traditional Californian house would be redesigned to become one of the most important and revolutionary designs of the 20th century, giving Gehry international prestige and fame. Frank Gehry’s “Own House” uses a mixture of corrugated metal, plywood, chain link and asphalt to construct a new envelope for an existing typical Californian house. This house has been inspired by Joseph Cornell, Ed Moses and Bob Rauschenberg. Gehry comments on his house by saying that there was something “magical” (Friedman M. , 2003, p. 54) about it. He admits having “followed the end of his [my] nose” (Friedman M. , 2003, p. 54) when it came to constructing the “new” house, which led Arthur Drexler, former Director...
‘Florated madness, liniar hysteria, strange decoratve disease, stylistic free-for-all’, such were the terms its contemporaries used to describe Art Nouveau, the first international design style. Art Nouveau was the rebellion against the entire Victorian sensibility, steeped as it was in the past. The exponents of the style hoped to revolutionize every aspect of design in order to set a standard that would be compatible with the new age. Art Nouveau was a direct descendant of the Arts and Crafts movement and influenced by celtic ornament as well as Japanese woodcut prints, all this resulted in an international style based on decoration.
Dorothy Draper was an American Interior Decorator born on November 22, 1889 in Tuxedo Park, NY. She was the first one ever to make Interior Design a profession.
Hunt, William Dudley Jr. “Beaux Arts, Ecole Des.” Hunt Encyclopedia of American Architecture, 1980 ed.
"Design, 1975–present". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/dsgn4/hd_dsgn4.htm (October 2004)
One of the most influential and well-known architectural engineers in America during the twentieth century has got to be Frank Lloyd Wright. He’s created and designed many creative and functional buildings for most of his career which spanned to about seventy years. His futuristic and modern designs were unique and creative, yet they were still functional for one to live in them. His eccentric thinking has brought about and greatly influenced the image of twentieth century architecture. His works have paved the way to the designs and structures of the civil engineers and architects that we have today in the twenty-first century.
Architecture, like art, had been only for men to pursue, but Mary Otis Stevens soon challenged the societal norms about her place in the field. The cultural standards and boundaries of the 1950s and 1960s were clearly defined, and “One of the most rigid of these boundaries was the one between the space for the daily lives of men and women, the city being defined as (men’s) work place and the suburb as (women’s) private residential haven… suburban house was both symbol and actual representation of enclosure of women and their children” (Umansky 29). Women were not allowed to be in the true workplace, and the only place they were openly accepted allowed to be was in the home taking care of children. Women were starting to have a voice in the world “in cultural and political debates” (Umansky 30) but they still had the dilemma of breaking through male-only fields, like architecture, “especially when they sought to go beyond helpmate roles” (Umansky 30). Many of the hardships Stevens overcame while trying to be accepted into an architecture program were not due to aptitude, but to sexism “some graduating classes had none (no women) at all” (Umansky 32). Even though she was in the architecture program, the university made it as hard as possible for her to stay there, for example a lack of proper dorms for women. Accepting women in
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries there was a new form of interior design happening all over in Europe and America especially in furniture. The style of the neoclassic era originated from the elements of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The break away from the Rococo style greatly influenced the neoclassic design. The Neoclassic era changed the style of furniture and was produced by two major furniture makers during this time, George Hepplewhite and Thomas Chippendale. The design and furniture of this time is still well know today the neoclassic era has inspired modern pieces that can be identified in furniture stores today.
Paul Poiret was born on April 20th, 1879 in Paris, France. His contributions to twentieth-century fashion has earned him the title in many people’s eyes as the “King of Fashion”, because he established the principle of modern dress and created the blueprint of the modern fashion industry. Poiret’s designs and ideas led the direction of modern design history. He was born into a working class family and his natural charisma eventually gained him entry into some of the most exclusive ateliers of the Belle Époque. Jacques Doucet, one of the capital’s most prominent couturiers, hired him after seeing promising sketches he had sold to other dressmakers. Furthermore, he was hired by the House of Worth and was put to work to create less glamorous and more practical, simple items because his out of the ordinary designs were not welcomed in open arms by opulent clientele. Despite this experience he was still confident in his ideas and ventured out on his own with money barrowed from his parents and opened a storefront. Moreover, he wanted to promote of the concept of a "total lifestyle” was seen as the first couturier to merge fashion with interior design. His independent work broke the normal conventions of dressmaking, and overturned their underlying presumptions. He liberated the woman’s body from the petticoat and the corset to allow clothing to follow woman’s natural form. Poiret also radically revolutionized dressmaking to switch from the emphasis surrounding the skills of tailoring towards those based on the skills of draping and began to use bright colors. Furthermore, Poiret was apart of the art deco movement, which was surrounded by a period of immense social upheaval, particularly for women, and emergence of technol...
Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier are two very prominent names in the field of architecture. Both architects had different ideas concerning the relationship between humans and the environment. Their architectural styles were a reflection of how each could facilitate the person and the physical environment. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House, is considered one of the most important buildings in the history of American architecture and Le Corbusier s Villa Savoye helped define the progression that modern architecture was to take in the 20th Century. Both men are very fascinating and have strongly influenced my personal taste for modern architecture. Although Wright and Corbusier each had different views on how to design a house, they also had similar beliefs. This paper is a comparison of Frank Lloyd Wright‘s and Le Corbusier ‘s viewpoints exhibited through their two prominent houses, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House and Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye.
The further you go back in history, it can be seen how interior design has blended with artistic societies such as during the Italian Renaissance. It has
Holt, Elizabeth G. From the Classicist to the Impressionists: Art and Architecture in the 19th Century. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966.
In the past, there have been many famous artists, but few of them contributed their artistic skills to the design of the home. Michelangelo was a famous interior designer who created the most magnificent places for the richest of people. He made quantum use of his beautiful sculptures and paintings to create a rich ambiance. This is how interior design first began as a career. Years later, furniture, draperies, and wall coverings were included. Elsie de Wolfe was the first to practice interior design in the 1950s. Adam and Louis Comfort Tiffany, two American brothers, began a company to create beautiful furnishings and art, especially stained glass.