The Iconic Interior: 1900 to the Present

Great book. It's a gift so I was a bit disappointed with the damage to the upper left corner.

I bought this book for an Interior Design course, as recommended on the reading list. I love the book. It not only supports the course work but makes an excellent reference book with brilliant photographs and written learning.

The photography was not of the standard I would have expected, many seemed really dark, and the text was heavy going and repetitive in places. While the selection of designers was international the bias was towards north American contributors. I enjoyed browsing through and will keep, but it was not the source of inspiration it aspired to be, more an academic reference book than a glossy table-top time.

A worthwhile reprint of Bradbury's 2012 edition and slightly updated with the addition of three house interiors (and it's called a compact edition but it's only around five centimetres less on the width and depth). The thing that almost all the interiors have in common is space and how it's creatively used in each room to reflect the house owner's living ideals.The rooms are presented historically from Edith Wharton's 1902 Mount House in Massachusetts up to the 2018 Commune designed Berkeley House in San Francisco and worth saying that a third of the hundred and three house interiors are in the US, the remainder are scattered around the world though mostly in Europe. The format for each house starts with a quite comprehensive essay on the various rooms and how the actual structure could influence the way furniture and fittings are positioned. A good example of this is British designer David Pocknell's 2007 barn conversion to a home and office, planning regulations had to be taken into account as well as supporting beams, seven photos reveal the designer's clever solution. John Lautner's 1962 Garcia House in LA has a huge vaulted roof that flows over the whole structure creating sloping ceilings in several rooms, nine photos, over two spreads, show how cosy the rooms look.Living rooms provide the big photos for each interior (with several showing those tables displaying mini stacks of thick cultural books) and smaller ones for bedrooms, kitchens and bathrooms usually over two spreads. Oddly Dieter Rams has his interiors summed up with three photos on one spread (maybe less is more) and Eduardo Longo's 1979 Casa Bola in Sao Paulo is another oddity because it's a sphere, another example of how the structure dictates the arrangement of the living areas.I enjoyed looking through the six hundred photos in the book and because the past and presents owners generally reflect a cultural or creative persona the design solutions are extremely varied and visually quite stimulating. Rooms here for everyone.