At the intersection of heritage, design history and contemporary art, this book offers new perspectives on the way historical interiors are encountered by, and viewed and presented for, present-day audiences. Many studies have highlighted the historical significance and meanings embedded in the landscape, architecture, decoration and objects to be found within houses and homes. But what about the social meanings of these spaces?
Central to this book is the idea that in reflecting, remaking and reimagining historical interiors, the contributions of artists, designers and craftspeople should be foregrounded in constructing ideas of authenticity, transparency, and materiality in the making process. The chapters present a range of case studies that reflect upon on how historical interiors are remade and reimagined by looking in and out; at how a reassembling of spaces ought to avoid 'a shrinking definition of the social itself' (Latour, 2005).
Surveying a range of interior 'types' from a number of historical periods, the book includes contributions from practitioners, scholars and makers. From digital reconstructions of a seventeenth-century Belgian constcamer to the interior and exterior worlds of specific historical figures, including Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Beatrix Potter, the book considers how these spaces have powerful significance for contemporary audiences, particularly in ways that are relatable to shared experiences of work, leisure, family, community, power and politics.
This book will be of interest to scholars of the history of interiors and collections, museology, archaeology, architectural history, art, and design history, as well as curators and caretakers of historical sites, spaces and objects.
Edited by:
Helen McCormack,
Jennifer Gray,
Anne Nellis Richter
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 244mm,
Width: 170mm,
Spine: 22mm
Weight: 805g
ISBN: 9781526176912
ISBN 10: 1526176912
Series: Studies in Design and Material Culture
Pages: 264
Publication Date: 01 July 2025
Audience:
General/trade
,
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
ELT Advanced
,
Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction: Reassembling and reimagining the social interior – Jennifer Gray, Anne Nellis Richter, Helen McCormack 1 Social, material, action: Re-interpreting historical domestic spaces and objects in contemporary practice – Jennifer Gray 2 Expanded Interiors: Roman wall paintings in dialogue with contemporary art practice - from Herculaneum and Pompeii to the north-east of England – Catrin Huber 3 Interior worlds onscreen: Miss Potter and To Walk Invisible – Madeleine Pelling 4 Reflecting on tales from a glass room – Edward Hollis, AnneMarie Bannister 5 The Front Room: Disapora migrant aesthetics in the home – Michael McMillan 6 Fabulation and Dennis Severs’ House: Assembling the Past – Freya Gowrley 7 Selling art in the domestic Interior: Hugh Lane at Lindsey House, 1909-1915 – Morna O’Neill 8 ‘The whole is now passed, the House down’: Visualising lost interiors – Anne Nellis Richter 9 The house of nature: (re)locating scientific collections in eighteenth-century Paris – Camilla Pietrabissa 10 Social spaces of knowledge: The homes, streets and squares of London’s eighteenth- century scientists – Helen McCormack 11 Maternal memories and spaces: Re-imagining the gendered interior in Ascendancy Ireland – Priscilla Sonnier -- .
Jennifer Gray is a Lecturer in the School of Design at Edinburgh College of Art. Anne Nellis Richter is an Independent Scholar and Adjunct Faculty at Smith College. Helen McCormack is Reader in Art and Design History in the department of Design History & Theory at Glasgow School of Art.
