INTERIOR DESIGN AND DECORATION | ENGLISH ARTICLES

INTERIOR DESIGN AND DECORATION The art of planning and producing interiors of structures based on function, comfort, convenience, and aesthetic appeal. The professional interior designer and decorator designs, plans, and furnishes the interiors of houses, commercial and institutional structures, hotels, clubs, theaters, restaurants, public areas, etc. The art of interior design and of decoration was conceived when the first elements of comfort, convenience, and attempts at beautification were introduced into dwellings. The modern art of interior design as we now think of it emerged during the Italian Renaissance, when Isabella d’Este, Marchioness of Mantua, commissioned the Grotta in 1496. Another important influence on interior design was Catherine de Vivonne, Marquise of Rambouillet, who early in the 17th century sought to accommodate the great rooms of drafty French chateaux to human needs, with special emphasis on the bedroom, to which she contributed the alcove, boudoir, antechamber, and bath. The collections of Queen Anne and Chippendale furniture made in the American colonies, now at the Winterthur Museum in Wilmington, Del., provide an index to the style and quality of eighteenth-century American interiors. The influence of English furniture designers Thomas Sheraton and George Hepple-white also became apparent at this time. American Federal designs, which popularized the use of patriotic American symbols as ornaments for furnishings, began to appear early in the 19th century. Joining forces with the Art-In-Trade Club, founded in 1909, these two men and others interested in the future of their profession founded the American Institute of Decorators (now the American Society of Interior Designers) in 1931. Read full: INTERIOR DESIGN AND DECORATION | ENGLISH ARTICLES