Evolution of the Interior Design Profession

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Evidence of interior design thinking has been apparent since ancient times, whether primitive cave paintings or formulaically decorated Egyptian tombs or sophisticated Roman frescoed chambers. The notion of an established interior design profession is harder to isolate, although its roots most certainly lay in the Italian Renaissance. In the eighteenth century one of Britain’s greatest architects, Robert Adam, spent much of his career in England adapting existing buildings for the aristocracy and embellishing their interiors with his highly stylized ‘neo-classical’ themes. Adam embodied the concepts of the gentleman and scholar (he has studied in Rome), necessary credentials to be accepted in a rigidly hierarchical society. Through to the end of the nineteenth century, ‘interior designers’ were in reality artisan specialists in furniture making, plasterwork, fabrics and so on. In France the interior designer was typically recognised as a shopkeeper. Motivated individuals and architects such as William Morris and Charles Rennie Mackintosh impacted internationally on interior design ideas and taste, but it was not until 1904 at the New York School of Applied and Fine Arts that the term ‘interior decoration’ was academically directed at a professional career. In the following year, Elsie De Wolf obtained her first interior commission and by 1913 she had published The House in Good Taste, generally regarded as the first recognized book on interior decoration. The 1920s saw the formation and expansion of academic programs, decorator clubs, home journals, etc. and by 1931 the American Institute of Interior Decorators was established. Thirty years later the body had evolved into the American Institute of Interior Designers and in 1975, the American Society of Interior Designers was formed. In the previous year the National Council for Interior Design Qualification

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