Putting It All Together 1

I. Experience

For my first theme discussed, I will be using a copy of a floor plan from John Lautner’s chemosphere house in Los Angeles, a picture I have used many times throughout my case studies but applies very well to the theme of experience. Experience, to me, is more or less the notion that an individual immediately recognizes how to interact with a certain space, and sometimes even recognize how you are supposed to move through it, though it may happen unconsciously. For example here in the chemosphere floor plan, I have drawn a bright green line through the middle of the house to indicate the two sides, the private and public sectors. Upon entering the house, any person can immediately tell which is which, more so than any other house, and that is on purpose. The plan only accounts for 2200 square-feet, so the direction of travel must be easily laid out. Notice that the public sector is completely open, with opportunity to occupy any space throughout the sector. The private sector on the other hand, is completely walled off with no outside visibility, and there is only one hallway to take you down that path, one that comes to a dead end in the master bedroom.

II. Finishes

Located in the Catherine Palace near St. Petersburg, Russia, sits a recreation of one of the greatest interior design achievements of human history. Called the Amber Room, its wall panels are made of pure amber backed by gold leafs and mirrors. The original Amber Room began construction in 1701 Prussia, and has since made stops in Germany before ending up in Catherine Palace in Russia. Upon its completion of over 10 years of work, it consisted of over 6 tones of amber and covered 590 square feet. It was once considered the 8^th Wonder of the World, but in World War II Nazi Germany looted the palace, taking the contents of the Amber Room to Konigsberg Castle in Berlin, and also where those contents would never be seen again. I chose this place to showcase finishes because of the fact that humans went through and will continue to go through hell and back just to salvage precious materials. The Amber Room became a crown jewel for Russian pride throughout the 18^th and 19^th centuries, and was even desired enough for Adolf Hitler to pack it all up and make it his own crown jewel.

III. Furnishings

Moving on to furnishings, these are the characteristics that are going to make or break a room, and truly make it unique from the rest. When you really think about it, a lot of the rooms in a standard building, well in a house anyway, are separated based off of what type of furniture I hold. For instance take the image I have provided. It is of just a standard bedroom, but it is an idea that holds true to my statement that our rooms are largely separated based on furniture. The furnishings are a lot of the times the first indicator into what type of room it is. Whether it is a desk we know its an office, if there is a bed we know it is a bedroom, if there’s a dinette set it’s a dining room, and if there is a toilet than that one is pretty obvious as well. Our furniture can many times even be used to decorate the room itself. For example, take a chandelier that is made completely out of elk antlers. These types of accessories are very popular among log-cabin style houses that blend their insides with the natural surroundings. A person could go legally hunt elk and over a period of time, make his own chandelier for free, yet someone would be willing to pay thousands of dollars for one.

IV. Representation

What better way to showcase the ideas of representation than with an interior space that has a sole objective of transporting you from one side of the globe to the complete opposite? If you were to walk into a Rainforest Café like the one that I have provided an image of up above, you could be anywhere from the snowy streets of Boston, all the way to the island town of Myrtle Beach. But regardless of your actual location, for the hour and a half that you inside this space everything in it adds to the sensation of a tropical rainforest. Everything from the materials, to finishes, to the furnishings, all contributes to enhance your experience. If one were to go into this space and take down all of the decorations, strip the wallpaper back to its original color, it would just be another normal restaurant and probably go out of business. But since they have put all of their efforts towards contributing their materials and furnishings into your experience of a far away place, they have successfully represented the recreation of a tropical rainforest. All of the physical additives to a room that combine to enhance your experience, are all a part of the representation aspect.  

V. Theories

 Theories of interior design is overall one of the hardest concepts for me to grasp, but when you get down to the roots it is truly one of the first examples of humans expressing themselves here on earth. To explain this, I would like to use the example given by Patrick Lucas in the ‘putting it all together’ video assigned to watch before this post. There are many examples of humans expressing them selves all across the ancient world, but the one I will use is the ancient Egyptian Pyramids. With so little clue about what was taking place in their surroundings and especially the science that explains it all, ancient cultures would many times look to the sky and even the afterlife for their answers. This grew into a strong connection between their civilization and the afterlife, and we see this prevalent in the pyramids. Dr. Lucas uses the analogy that the pyramids were a way for the Pharaohs to lift their selves away from the physical world and funnel that into the afterlife with the gods. Everything in the pyramid, from the ways in which the light travels to the depictions on the walls, speak to a connection with the gods.