On Space / In Time : a Timeline

To better understand the development of modernity through the history of interiors it is necessary to pinpoint some of the significant events that took place over the two preceding centuries, creating the passage from the decorative environment of the neoclassical interior to the “space for living” represented by the contemporary interior. Etymologically speaking, Raum and room appear to have the same root; likewise, the etymology of interior, in-tra (in between), drives a certain new way of understanding architecture that focuses on the inside, making the content more important than the container. Architecture generates the interior and furniture then creates order by organizing the environment. Space, therefore, is the most important element as the sum of all that is contained within it—that is, from furniture (fixed and mobile) to objects (small and large), to the people who inhabit it and their actions, and all the words that go towards explaining it. This Timeline comprises a selection of heterogeneous events that summarize a variety of phenomena. Its purpose is to illustrate how creative syntheses forced attention in other directions—from the decorative arts to furniture; from furniture to space; from space to living.