Century of Interior Design: The Design, the Designers, the Products, and the Profession 1900-2000

by Stanley Abercrombie

More than four hundred full-color and black-and-white photographs highlight a survey of twentieth-century interior design, showcasing the work the changes that occurred in design principles, furniture, fabrics, accessories, and other key elements over one hundred years. Simultaneous.

Genres: Nonfiction, Architecture

224 pages, Paperback

First published November 8, 2003

Reviews

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had expected this to be more like an art history book with substantial text that tells a narrative of the development of the various schools of design from 1900 to 2000. This book is not that. Instead, it's set up so each of the set of facing pages is one year. Across the upper portion of the page are landmark events that happened that year, which is cool but not particularly useful if you don't know what those events are prior to reading the book (e.g., "Frank Lloyd Wright redesigns Taliesin..."). The bottom of the facing pages are pictures of important objects and spaces from that year. And that's really the best part of the book. You can spend an hour or two looking through them in order and watch design evolve over 101 years.

My favorite part of the book, however, is Stanley Abercrombie's snark. He gives set of facing pages a section title for that year. 1979's is epic: "Sunar showrooms spread pox of postmodernism."

Mr. Abercrombie, I feel you. Postmodernism in architecture and design was the worst.