Synopsis | Schedule | Participants

Symposium Synopsis

One century ago Frank Alvah Parsons founded the first Interior Design program in the United States at Parsons School for Design in New York. For over ten decades, and in response to myriad cultural and professional forces, the study of the interior has developed into a hybrid of environmental psychology, fashion design, product design, architecture, material science, and cultivated taste. Now, at a time of unusually rapid technological and cultural evolution, it is time for a critical assessment of the field.

AfterTaste 2 is the second annual international symposium dedicated to the critical review of interior design and to identifying pressing contemporary issues and practices that will challenge practitioners in the near future. It is intended as an expansive meditation on the concept of the interior environment and its constituent elements.

AfterTaste 2 will comprise three series of thematically linked lectures followed by panel discussions.

The Intellectual History of Taste
The theory of “taste” as category of aesthetic judgment and its evolution as a distinguishing characteristic of the interior designer.

Representing the Interior
Modeled interiors, the representation of milieu, and the “alienated” interior.

The Narrative Life of Things
The particular proximity of interior design to the body and its potential to redefine social and spatial practices.