History of Interior Design-Pilar Uribe Donatiu-The Beginning of Modernity

From 1909 to 1919, design professionals and artists started being keen on developing skills and the imitation of works of the past.

Their focus was mainly on Historicism, Revivalism and Traditionalism.

In terms of Historicism they relied on history for inspiration and details. It was common since Renaissance and its progressive development in design.

Revivalism referred to the effort put to go back to a specific historic style, as in Greek and Gothic revivals of the 19^th century.

Moreover, traditionalism was an alternative opposition to modernism that followed the idea that design was all about imitating old the work of any historic period.

Eclecticism was followed by the idea that all designers had to choose an old historic movement and copy it as best as they could.

In the United States, newly rich and powerful used this movement to get identification with European aristocracy. It was all about importing things of the past that brought culture, style and status.

At the same time, in Paris, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts was the fist real school of architectures with the aim of teaching their students with a method of application of classic historicism to planning and architecture.

Eclectic architecture in the United States needed specialised interior designers who knew how to proceed in creating the rooms with the styles they wanted.  Interior designers and decorators had to train themselves on knowing the styles used in each period, to be able to know what elements had to be placed in every interior, moreover they had to know about antiques, art and any other element that was required in an interior in order to be able to get their designs right.

One of my favourite Spanish arquitects, which is also an Eclectic arquitect, is Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926). He is so called the father of the Modernism movement, all because of his style when designing his architectural pieces of art. He teared apart the idea that buildings had to be straight and geometrical to create shapes inspired by natural and organic shapes. In my opinion, this was the moment when architects and society in general stopped having this fear of leaving the bubble of what’s normal, and broke the unwritten rules of design and architecture. All in all, thanks to Antoni Gaudi, now we have buildings with amazing shapes and structures that no one would have ever imagined by that time.