A History of Interior Design

Now in its second edition. A History of Interior Design delivers the inside story on 6,000 years of personal and public space. John Pile acknowledges that interior design is a field with unclear boundaries, in which construction, architecture, the arts and crafts, technology and product design all overlap. These topics are woven together in a narrative that runs from cave dwellings and temple architecture, through Gothic cathedrals and palaces on to the grand civic speces of the nineteenth century and the modern skyscrapers. Embedded in a social and political context, detailed discussions of famous buildings, from the Parthenon to the Pompidou Centre, are interspersed with investigations of the domestic – the cottages, farmhouses, apartments and city terraces inhabited by ordinary people. Primary source quotations are used to provide contemporary perspectives on a wide variety of interior settings. New to the second edition is a chapter looking at the interior design history of Asian and Islamic tradtions. Fresh material has also been added on Pre-Columbian design history. There are 180 new images throughout the book. Including furniture, , lighting and product design Finally, this