Going Inside Architecture: A Tentative Synopsis for a History of the Interior

Extract

A recommendable approach to architecture is to take the whole of each object as a point of departure and to look for its essential opposites: interior and exterior. Three elementary questions, then, will present themselves: How have the builders mastered the interior? How have they mastered the exterior? How have they mastered the relationship between interior and exterior? The interior is, as a rule, a building’s principal aspect, its very heart, the place where its intended activity, its events, use, function are fulfilled — determining the fundamental conditions for its users and visitors, their experience and state of mind. The exterior is, as a rule, subordinate, designed for introduction, preparation, presentation.