Susan Weber

Curator; Academic; Writer; Editor / Interior Design / United States / Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture

www.bgc.bard.edu

Books Every Interior Designer Should Read

All my life, I’ve been “into” interior design in one way or another. It began with looking at the so-called shelter magazines, moved on to watching my mother make decorative choices for our home, to deciding in college that this was an area that went beyond “pretty” and revealed unsuspected facets about my world. To discover, explore, and try to understand the cultural meanings of what would become to be known as material culture would become the governing intellectual passion of my adult life. . . . View the complete text

From the beginning, I read everything I could discover or that people recommended about what then was simply called interior design. I quickly realized that most people thought of the field as an intellectual sideline at best, a froufrou pursuit of pretty things as a relaxation from more serious pursuits.

That was one of the primary reasons I started the Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture. A mouthful of a name, perhaps, but genuinely representative of the new thinking about interior design as a field broadly representative of culture in any given country or area at a specific moment but—even more—the most significant repository of what people thought and felt about their culture at that time. To me, this is endlessly fascinating and endlessly illuminating and one of the most important areas in understanding any given time or culture.

It is with this background in mind that I have recommended the list of books that follow. All are brilliant, all are illuminating, but I would like to bring attention to some particular favorites and point out an example of what is on the horizon.

The Finest Rooms in America is an especially well-balanced survey of interiors of the past 200 years in this country because it has no bias toward any one period or style and gives the reader a clear and detailed view of this country’s development. On a broader scale, who cannot appreciate, value, and continually refer back to Mario Praz’s An Illustrated History of Interior Design? Another favorite of mine (I’m prejudiced, it’s true) is Women Designers in the USA, 1900–2000, which was published by the Bard Graduate Center in conjunction with an exhibition in 2000–2001.

But there’s so much that is intriguing just over the horizon. For example, a new journal, Interiors: Design, Architecture and Culture, a three-times-per year publication, edited by Anne Massey and John Turpin, whose first issue appeared in July, 2010, is devoted to the analysis of the spaces we occupy, and promises to enliven the field with stimulating and conversation-provoking essays on the world of interiors.

In short, for me, interior design is the newest and certainly among the most exciting of current research in fields in what we call “the arts.” Most excitingly it’s a field open to anyone interested in the broadest sense in civilization, what it is and how it developed – and continues to develop. I am so pleased to be able to introduce you to some of what I consider the best and most thoughtful thinking in the field to date.

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Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing

Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing

Edited by Michael Merrill
Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers
Published: October 2021

The first in-depth study of drawings as primary sources of insight into architect Louis Kahn’s architecture and creative imagination. Based on unprecedented archival research, with over 900 illustrations and written contributions by Michael Benedikt, Michael Cadwell, David Leatherbarrow, Louis Kahn, Nathaniel Kahn, Sue Ann Kahn, Michael J. Lewis, Robert McCarter, Michael Merrill, Marshall Meyers, Jane Murphy, Gina Pollara, Harriet Pattison, Colin Rowe, David Van Zanten, Richard Wesley, and William Whitaker.

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Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People

By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022

Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.

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Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future

By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 25, 2022

Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.

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Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn by Harriet Pattison

Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn

By Harriet Pattison
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: October 2020

An intimate glimpse into the professional and romantic relationship between Harriet Pattison and the renowned architect Louis Kahn. Harriet Pattison, FASLA, is a distinguished landscape architect. She was Louis Kahn’s romantic partner from 1959 to 1974, and his collaborator on the landscapes of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, and the F.D.R. Memorial/Four Freedoms Park, New York. She is the mother of their son, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn.

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Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall

By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022

Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”

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David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian by Rick Poynor

David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian

By Rick Poynor
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: September 2020

A comprehensive overview of the work and legacy of David King (1943–2016), whose fascinating career bridged journalism, graphic design, photography, and collecting. King launched his career at Britain’s Sunday Times Magazine in the 1960s, starting as a designer and later branching out into image-led journalism, blending political activism with his design work.

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