Reconstructing The Modern Interior

January 15th - February 11th, 2018

Outcomes from Dr. John Potvin’s Fall 2017 ARTH 298 course.

Since the nineteenth century, the interior as concept and spatial reality referred to: 1) the ‘inside of a building or room, especially in reference to the artistic effect’; 2) the ‘picture or representation of the inside of a building or room’; and 3) ‘a “set” consisting of the inside of a building or room’ of a theatre. In its modern usage, the interior functions at once as a space both artistic and theatrical in its effect, public as much as private, personal as much as collective. This course will chart the emergence of the modern interior and the notion of domesticity beginning in the nineteenth century and ending with the Second World War. As part of the final assignment was to recreate an exemplary model of a modern interior reconstructed as a two-dimensional photomontage or montage. Student groups were asked to consider: What do you think people would want to, or should, know about the space? What material and visual elements are necessary to facilitate a recreation of the interiors for a viewer who is unable to be in the space itself? What best captures the idea(l)s of the designer?  These are the creative, innovative and accomplished outcomes of the 9 student groups.