Textiles in the Modern Interior: Discovering the Hidden Local and Global Stories Between the Weaves

Abstract

The design of the interior has been a zone for diverse actors and agencies during the modern movement period. Staging architects, decorators, and homemakers who shaped answers to modernity in various ways, its outcome is manifold. Due to its pluralism, the modernist interior offers, for this reason, an important lens when investigating the many narratives constructing the history of modernism. Across the different approaches, sometimes expressing the idea of an architectural ensemble, sometimes characterized by constellations of material objects or decoration, the interior often featured certain recurring components, but always differently. Exploring the construct of the interior through such components, i.e., materials, details, colors, objects, furniture, etc., offers the potential to generate new knowledge that might contribute to an international collective memory, inviting a variety of voices to the discussion. The production of textiles, i.e., rugs, carpets, upholstery fabrics, tapestries, etc., was in the modernist period, often balancing at the intersection of art, applied arts, design, mass production and craft. It moreover could involve several ‘authors’ such as the creator and the producer. In addition, the analysis can also develop from the consumers’ angle, in relation to users’ influence on modern interior textiles, as one of the most personal of interior components, adding to the individual character of the modern interior space. Within modern interiors, textiles are perhaps the interior element that is the most fragile due to being renewed parallel to stylistic tendencies and maintenance purposes. This creates opportunities for discussion related to temporality and ephemerality. Thus, in this session, we focus on the use of textiles in the modern interior. Using textiles as a catalyst for reflections and investigations into how the modern interior was conceived, new narratives of what influenced interior design and its expression can surface and shed light on multiple, hopefully uncovered perspectives. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.