اندیش نامه معماری داخلی
پیاپی 1 (پاییز و زمستان 1400)

Interior design is one of the disciplines associated with architecture that plays a role in the design and construction of a building. The relationship between interior design and architecture is a pervasive issue today. Since interior design was not separated from architecture in the past, while it is now independent of architecture. The main question of this research is the relationship between these two and their continuity and coalescence. Searching for this question began by exploring the etymology of interior design discipline, i.e. knowing its origin and evolutions. In other words, the design of interior spaces has been studied from the past to current times with recollecting historical events. The recognition of factors forming the interior design profession was provided by reviewing the changes of designing interior spaces from the past to the renaissance period, its transformation in the post-industrial period and also recognition of the emergence of the decoration profession. Then, the way of transforming this profession to discipline and its specialized characteristics in relation to architecture concluded to recognizing the status of interior design discipline in current situation.

“Interior Architecture” or “Interior Design” as names for professional specialties and academic disciplines, have a history of nearly a century. Most of the research done during these years has been related to practical and applied design issues, but the need for research in the theoretical field, has called for attention in the last two decades, more than ever. One of the most important works published on this subject, is the book, Toward a New Interior: An Anthology of Interior Design Theory. In the book, Loise Weinthal, formulates a theoretical framework and places emphasis on a collection of essays within his proposed layers of framework in order to draw out themes. A diagram of this anthology’s organizational strategy concieves the interior in eight asymmetrical onion-shaped layers that occasionally have overlaps here and there. The book, according to the model and corresponding to the sections, is comprised of selected essays related to a broader set of concerns than interior design. In this article, in order to reflect on the theoretical framework of Interior design, we analyse and interpret the views of Louis Weinthal in this book. The article has two main sections; The first part, with a question-based structure, is about Weinthal ideas of what and how is interior, but the second part, is dedicated to the description of his proposed theoretical framework and a review of articles related to the model. The aim of the present article, is to contemplate on how to formulate a theoretical structure for interior design. The article can be a way of thinking and research in the theoretical field of interior design, furthermore, can help students and professionals in the field become more familiar with interior design literature, related issues, and theoretical resources; An area that deserves more attention due to its emergence and, consequently, its lack of resources.

There are different types of books in every academic discipline, covering various subject matters, while taking different positions and offering different approaches to an array of problems. However, besides being influenced by the requirements of the field, books belonging to the same type usually share specific characteristics as well. Understanding these characteristics and their implications in terms of structure and content can be beneficial in different stages of both education and research. Based on such characteristics, this article seeks to introduce the most common types of academic books, available in the fields of architecture and interior design. For this purpose, we will first examine some prototypes of academic books and explain their prominent features. We will then study such features in the context of the published works to find out how the structure and narrative of such books are aligned with common characteristics of their respective types.

The establishment of the Decorative Arts faculty and education of interior design can be traced back around 60 years. When it comes to the education of a specific academic discipline, like interior design, study the relevant history is inevitable to improve the quality of education.  Investigating the history of interior design education in Iran, we encountered the scarcity of written documents in this field, therefore; the need of using oral testimonies emerges. Hence, oral testimonies are very important in studying the history of interior design education and the lack of it will cause losing the useful information forever. Research that is based on oral documents is often referred to as oral history, which is one of the most effective types of research in historical and social studies. Today, this type of research has spread significantly in research and academic communities around the world. But is any method of collecting oral documents an oral history? Is the nature of the document sufficient reason to call it oral history? What are the etiquettes of dealing with an oral document? This paper tries to unveil the research methodology of dealing with oral documents in a research project about the origin of academic training of interior design in Iran.Oral history is often equated with interviews or lectures, but in fact, oral history research goes beyond gathering and recording information. This type of research is a specialized field of historical studies with specific techniques that distinguish it from just collecting oral documents. The basis of information in oral history is the interview, which is conducted with a clear structure and as a result of coherent research. The interview forms a purposeful dialogue between the historian and the interviewee that distinguishes it from recollection. In addition to the importance of determining the research plan, oral history, like any other research, has two theoretical and practical aspects. The theoretical aspect includes the intellectual foundations of the research, which are rooted in the purpose and destination of the project. The practical aspect, in other words, is the same as the general issues in oral history and pays attention to the details that are necessary to guide the project and provides instructions for conducting interviews, recording, and maintaining research documents. These two aspects are not separated from each other and knowledge of each adds to the quality of the other.This paper is organized into three main sections. The first part describes what oral history is and provides an overview of its definition, background, subject matter, and history in Iran. The second part reviews the theoretical foundations of the oral history research project. Issues such as setting questions, identifying informants, and determining the research program and roadmap. The third part deals with the practical experience of doing an oral history project. In conclusion, an attempt is made to review the most important points that the researcher of oral testimonies should consider.

Ontological Paradigms fabricate not only man’s conception of the whole world but also his understanding of his own body, his different forms of being in the world such as “Architecture” and “Designed interiors” are affected by them to the extend that without a shift in the former, evolution of the latter and its manifestations in architecture may well be reduced to a standard and inapplicable History of Architecture. Scrutinizing this very being called Body and its personifications in architecture of a given time would be the necessity for abolishing that pre-modeled history. Obviously, either for the mass of the standard history data or the built conception of the functions of architecture this scrutiny is rarely performed. The awareness of this problem oriented us to see body and its possible architectural imageries in an unstandard narriation invigorated by a “subterranean” reading of Spinozism. On the basis of spinoza’s assertion that “dimension and mind are Identical” we read history of architecture not through the supposed lense of architect’s Ideas and thoughts but via actual orders of bodies/objects and hence came to find Architectures (and not architecture) for totally diffrent bodies: A non-standard history of architectures resulted from an unprecedent order of data. A design approach could develop from within this paradigm shift _presenting an applicable and ethical history unlike its theoretical long familiar rival_ which by deniying supremacy of any design proffesion (architect, interior designer, urban designer, …) and by rejecting all man’s previlage over Nature, posites Nature as the new core, starting point of design process.