TAD3203

Critical histories of interior architecture

6 points
* 3 hours lecture/tutorial contact and 9 independent study hours per week
* Second semester
* Caulfield
* Prerequisites: TAD1101 and TAD1102

Objectives On successful completion of this subject, students should be able to approach existing designs with a critical sense of their deeper social and aesthetic values as well as the popular connotations of their styles; discern symbolic associations in interiors and express links between their design and a historical vocabulary of images and metaphors which operate in traditional interpretations of such spaces and objects; support their intuitive opinions - either in favour of a design or against certain designs - with reasoned argument and engage the language of criticism in debating the sense or the vanity of certain spaces and objects; enjoy the imaginative task of describing the situations in which a given space would be used in ways which reveal its strengths and weaknesses; project discriminating judgements with a sense of critical rigour which explores and challenges the existence of the principles of design; feel comfortable with iconoclastic views of design classics wherever a coherent or poetic reason for disapproval seems justified.

Synopsis A series of talks by the lecturer is followed by presentations of spaces and objects and debate or group discussion concerning the merits of the designs. The criteria by which the objects are judged allow the student to consider critically the moral dichotomies of judgement in design, such as practicality/impracticality, social use/private folly, labour-saving/unnecessary consumption, luxury/environmental nuisance.

Assessment Two class presentations supplemented, where appropriate, with written notes: 40% and 60% respectively

Recommended texts

Barthes R Mythologies Granada, 1973
Dormer P The meanings of modern design Thames and Hudson, 1991
Forty A Objects of desire Thames and Hudson, 1986
Papanek V The green imperative: Ecology and ethics in design and architecture Thames and Hudson, 1995
Shields R Lifestyle shopping: The subject of consumption Routledge, 1992