The Professionalization of Interior Design

Abstract

The professionalization of interior design has operated through several trajectories, including the recognition of professional status, the development of charters and codes, and the consolidation of technical and theoretical disciplinary bodies of knowledge. Much of this has resulted from a desire to differentiate and evolve beyond nineteenth century decorative design advice, and its associations with amateur practice. In this chapter we examine this relationship through disciplinary developments in interior theory and the corresponding shifts in professionalization. This is not to suggest the two are closely aligned, but to examine how their respective conditions have evolved relative to the theoreticization and positioning of interior design as a discipline in its own right. To assist this discussion we draw on three periods from the mid-twentieth century to the present in order to explore how various developments have affected historical and theoretical formulations, and in particular the influence of women, gender, and identity on a discourse that is different than that in architecture. The chapter concludes with a tilt at future development in the digital age, and how new technologies, the Internet of Things, sensory data, digital fabrication, and design complexity will affect traditional understandings of the interior, when experienced from these new perspectives.

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