A History of Interior Design tells the story of 6,000 years of domestic and public space. This fully updated fourth edition includes a completely new chapter on twenty-first-century interior design and a heavily revised chapter on the late twentieth century.

Interior design is a field that includes construction, architecture, furniture, decoration, technology and product design. This one-volume history weaves together these topics in a fascinating narrative that runs from cave dwellings and temple architecture, through Gothic cathedrals and Renaissance palaces, 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 cathedrals to Koolhaas, are interspersed with investigations of the domestic vernacular – the cottages, farmhouses, apartments and city terraces inhabited by ordinary people.

The new edition of this bestselling history includes over 50 new images and many previously black and white images updated to colour.

About the Authors:

Judith Gura is a professor of design history and theory, directing the design history programme at the New York School of Interior Design. She is the author of critically praised books on interior design, Scandinavian furniture and furniture styles.

John Pile was Professor of Design at the renowned Pratt Institute Brooklyn for most of his teaching career. He is the author of twelve books on furniture, colour, draftsmanship, office planning and other aspects of interior design.

Exclusivity and new forms of craftmanship in design are becoming highly prized in a world that is returning to the values of authentic making, but new technology and material use have changed the definition of ‘handmade’ and increased the desirability of furniture items as objects of function and beauty. This ambitious overview of contemporary studio furniture celebrates the achievements of an international selection of designers producing works of individual artistic expression that sit as comfortably in museums as they do in domestic settings.

Featuring hundreds of stunning and unusual pieces, from finely finished tables and chairs made from natural materials to experimental furniture that straddles the boundary between craft and art, this is the only comprehensive survey of its kind. Covering a wide range of design themes reflecting the broad spectrum of practices around the world, this richly illustrated publication is an essential resource for design connoisseurs, collectors, and anyone interested in bespoke furniture design.

Contents List:

1. The Studio Craft Movement: Pioneers • 2. The Late Twentieth Century: Explorers • 3. The Twenty-First Century: Nature; Wood; Metal; Melded; Geometric; Biomorphic; Concept; Expressing; Tongue-in-Cheek; Ecology; Process; Interiors

About the Author:

Judith Gura (1935–2020) was a design historian and author whose books include A History of Interior Design (as co-author), Design After Modernism (2012), Sourcebook of Scandinavian Furniture (2007) and Postmodern Design Complete (2017, Thames & Hudson). She was on the faculty of the New York School of Interior Design and taught at Pratt Institute and FIT. A contributing editor to Art + Auction for many years, she also curated exhibitions at the New York School of Interior Design and worked on exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum and the Whitney Museum.

The definitive publication on the most exuberant design period of the 20th century

Emerging in the late 1970s, the multistranded cultural phenomenon that came to be known as Postmodernism proclaimed the death of modernism. Postmodern architects and designers eschewed the rigid ‘international’ style that many felt dehumanized its inhabitants and cities, promoting a belief that design need not follow rules. Instead, they revelled in borrowing from the past, celebrated colour, pattern and ad-hocism, and produced a dazzling spectrum of objects, spaces and buildings in the process. It became a style of its own, the defining look of the 1980s, and placed the names and objects of Denise Scott Brown, Ettore Sottsass, Charles Jencks, Alessandro Mendini and Michael Graves in our homes. Today, aided by a return to an interest in the hand-made, the aesthetics and the preoccupations of the style are enjoying a revival in a new generation of producers and an older generation of collectors.

<Postmodern Design Complete tells the story of how the movement came into being, introducing the ‘masters’ under whom it flourished, and the principal figures, from around the world, in the fields of architecture, furniture, graphic design, textiles, product and industrial design. It also includes an overview of notable postmodern homes and interiors and contemporary designs influenced by the movement, most of which have rarely been published. Highly informed and accessible texts, including a foreword by Charles Jencks and an afterword by Denise Scott Brown, are illustrated with images that bring together classics and little-seen rarities, unusual objets d’art, and mass-produced items.

Incorporating the most knowledgeable sources and material in a single volume, Postmodern Design Complete is the definitive overview of the movement’s seminal years and one that the design-conscious of any persuasion will want.

Contents List:

Introduction • 1. Masters of Postmodernism • 2. Forms of Postmodernism • 3. Living with Postmodernism • 4. Postmodernism Continues

About the Author:

Judith Gura is a design historian and author whose books include Guide to Period Styles for Interiors, A History of Interior Design (co-author), Design After Modernism: Furniture and Interiors, 1970–2010, and Sourcebook of Scandinavian Furniture: Designs for the 21st Century. She is on the faculty of The New York School of Interior Design, has taught at Pratt Institute and FIT, and lectures frequently about contemporary design and furnishings. She is a contributing editor to Art + Auction, has curated exhibitions at the New York School of Interior Design and worked on exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum and the Whitney Museum.

Who made New York the centre of the chic and urbane interior - a city where Andy Warhol entertained in a French Empire salon and Babe Paley served martinis and cigarettes in her taxicab yellow living room? The answer is discovered in the illustrated profiles of nearly 100 interior designers in the two-volumes of "New York Interior Design, 1935-1985", which introduces the Acanthus Press Visual Library. Over 600 photographs, assembled by author Judith Gura, present a visual biography of the city's interior innovators. From the refreshed Francophilia of Eleanor McMillen Brown to the high-tech minimalism of Ward Bennett, volume 1: "Inventors of Tradition" and volume 2: "Masters of Modernism", unfold a glittering panorama of New York's old world duplexes and river and park-view towers.In addition to the work of celebrated tastemakers - Mario Buatta, Billy Baldwin, and Melvin Dwork - Gura uncovers the interiors of once-influential, now-obscure designers whose work played an important role in the development of the New York look. Among these tastemakers are William Pahlmann, the pioneer of contemporary eclecticism in the 1940s; Emily Malino, a 1950s modernist with a soft touch; and the incomparable Barbara d'Arcy, whose trendsetting model rooms for Bloomingdale's electrified the 1960s and the 1970s. Acanthus Press Visual Library presents worlds of culture and design through images.

About the Author
Judith Gura is a professor and faculty member at the New York School of Interior Design, where she directs the design history program. A graduate of Cornell University, she has a Master's degree in Design History from the Bard Graduate Center. She has taught at Pratt Institute and FIT, and has contributed to exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Museum and the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

New York City has always been home to the chic and urbane a place where Andy Warhol entertained in his French Empire salon and where Babe Paley served martinis and cigarettes in her taxicab-yellow living room. Who made this city the center of cosmopolitan interior design as we know it today? The answer is found in the lavishly illustrated profiles of the nearly 100 interior designers featured in the two-volumes of New York Interior Design 1935 1985.

Over 600 photographs assembled by author Judith Gura present a visual biography of the city s interior innovators. From the refreshed Francophilia of Eleanor McMillen Brown to the high-tech minimalism of Ward Bennett, New York Interior Design unfolds a glittering panorama of New York s old world duplexes, river and park-view towers, and its minimalist downtown lofts.

Volume I, Inventors of Tradition, highlights the careers and showcases the work of the designers who translated and then transformed European period styles into a new vocabulary for America. In addition to the work of celebrated tastemakers Billy Baldwin, Mario Buatta, and Albert Hadley Gura uncovers the interiors of once-influential, now-obscure designers whose work played an important role in the development of the New York look. Among these practitioners are William Pahlmann, the pioneer of contemporary eclecticism; the glamorous Melanie Kahane, with a fondness for shocking pink and tasteful pizzaz; and the epitome of the southern civility, Joseph Braswell, who believed that a beautiful environment could make its occupants into better people.

Inventors of Tradition is accompanied by Volume II, New York Interior Design, 1935-1985: Masters of Modernism, which examines the work of the designers who moved away from European tradition, incorporated new materials and cutting-edge technologies, and pioneered the architectural approach to interior decorating.