A History of Interior Design - Tapa dura

John Pile

Second Edition

In its first edition this major survey on interior design by John Pile won the 2001 ASID (American Society of Interior Designers) Educational Foundation/Joel Polsky Prize. 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 fascinating narrative that runs from cave dwellings and temple architecture, through Gothic cathedrals and Renaissance Palaces on to the grand civic spaces of the nineteenth century and the sleek interiors of 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 vernacularóthe 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

In this edition John Pile has included a new chapter looking at the interior design history of Asian and Islamic traditions. The Various paths along which design developed in India, China, Korea, and Japan are explored, together with a survey of developments in Cambodia, Thailand, and Indonesia. Islamic design is discussed in the context of its wide-ranging religious and cultural significance. New Material has also been added on Pre-Columbian design history.

The depth of John Pile's survey of interior design is also increased with the addition of 180 new images throughout the book, including furniture, textiles, lighting, and product design.

Finally, this new edition is completed with some examples of new work from across the globe that show how the constantly accelerating pace of development in scientific and technical fields has brought about new directions in interior  design history.

With 625 illustrations, 275 in colour.