Since the first years of the emergence of culture and the development of civilization, man has tried to decorate his home, to create a comfortable atmosphere for living. Therefore, the history of interior styles was not born in the twentieth century or even in the Renaissance. It goes back to ancient times, when craftsmanship was emerging and people learned to make furniture, dishes, and other elements using manual labor.
For a long time, historical interiors were based on the comfort of the exterior and interior decoration of houses, rejecting aesthetic aspects. The importance of the attractiveness of furniture and other design elements became evident at the beginning of the 20th century, when the era of modernism and constructivism flourished. This moment coincided with industrial development, when the integration of machine technologies allowed the creation of solutions that were unique in their characteristics.
The concept of interior design in its modern sense was established in the post-war period (after the end of World War II). In 1957, the International Council for Industrial Design was founded, which united most countries and described the term “design”. It defines creative activity aimed at improving the harmony of the surrounding space to satisfy material and spiritual needs.
Artistic design has truly become a new approach to interior design, rethinking previous approaches. The utilitarianism and aesthetics of space have been defined, making them accessible to most people. Previously attractive interior design elements Only representatives of the power elite and privileged strata of society could afford them. Now they are becoming common for everyone without exception.
The main factor in the formation of the concept of interior design is the emergence of an appropriate specialist. Until the twentieth century, there were fine and decorative arts, crafts, but they were not combined in one design direction. Under the influence of scientific and technological progress, the profession of designer appeared. This was facilitated by various factors, among which the following can be distinguished:
Both in Western Europe and in the USA in the 20th century there was a radical restructuring of the material environment. Small private houses were replaced by skyscrapers. Technical development required more detailed design of housing, integration of lighting, heating, sewage, water supply, air conditioning and other engineering systems into it. It is the industrialization and active development of megacities that can be called the key factor in the emergence of the profession of interior designer.
Design creativity, like any other practical activity, is impossible without theoretical substantiation and scientific developments. In the middle of the 20th century, leading universities in Europe began to train design artists, and after that interior designers themselves. This became an obvious achievement and a signal for the transition to a new stage, as well as the creation of research institutes that studied design problems.
Different traditions define three approaches to the emergence of designers, using different methodologies:
There is also a methodology based on the fact that design became truly important when, in the production of popular home goods, attention began to be paid not only to the quality of materials and functionality, but also to their attractiveness for decoration and harmonious integration into the interior.
Engineering inventions launched an active process of design rethinking of things. It was not enough to simply have functional technical innovations, they had to harmoniously fit into the space. To implement this task, there was a need for specialists who would understand the processes of spatial combination. That is why the demand for the work of interior designers has intensified and reached its peak in the modern period.
The basics of interior design are the ideas of the 19th and 20th centuries, which respectively became a rethinking of previous artistic and creative processes. The massive demand for design services and professional specialists was the result of the industrial revolution, urbanization and industrialization, and the emergence of a large number of multi-storey residential buildings.
At the same time, it cannot be argued that there were no interior designers in the Middle Ages or the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Paul Gauguin, Albrecht Dürer, and other specialists who are better known to us as painters and sculptors, in fact, in their work paid great attention to applied art, to the creation of practical solutions to improve people’s living space.
Therefore, the work of interior designers was appreciated many centuries before the emergence of modern design science, it’s just that back then they were not a separate category of art, but were perceived as part of the general. Even today we can observe how modern interior design often uses styles that are actually a rethinking of ancient developments – classicism, baroque and others.
