Thursday, May 30, 2013

To what end?

Recently, I was asked to recommend interior design books for a beginner's library. I rattled off a list of the names we all have on the tips of our tongues – Elsie de Wolfe, Syrie Maugham, Frances Elkins, Nancy Lancaster, Sister Parish, Jean-Michel Frank, Billy Baldwin, John Fowler, David Hicks, Albert Hadley and Mark Hampton. Eventually I wandered off, texting the bartender for another manhattan as I did so, and it occurred to me as I headed to the bar that, though a good list of names, I'd missed the point. Someone else that evening in our library during one of our cocktail parties had remarked how lucky I was to own all these books. Two manhattans in, the point I'd missed, whatever it was, eluded me momentarily – until my mind snagged on that word "lucky".



Indeed, but to what end? thought I, surprising myself with the force of it. I own each of the books on my quick list (and many more such monographs) and, irritated as I am to find it so, it took someone else's perfectly normal question to set me wondering why I actually do own and want to own so many books. To what end, precisely? Or, to be precise, what happens to them if, in the end, I no longer need them? How does one dismantle a lifetime's collection of books? Is it just so much paper that few, if anyone, would want?


I've mentioned before how the new president of a local for-profit university decided the modern student no longer needed books as "everything necessary is available online." He closed the library, deaccessioned everything, and at the time it seemed self-evident that it was to my benefit to have, at least, the books I'd ordered for the school library come into mine. After all, I was still teaching, would do so for the foreseeable future and I could use them for the blog. When, a few years later, I retire, that seemed yet another opportunity – I could spend golden years reading them all – visions of velvet smoking jacket-clad days spent in a paneled library, books piling (neatly) all over the place, creaking shelves reaching to the ceiling, the scents of leather and pot-pouri, the literary equivalent of new car smell, suffusing the room, all played in my head.

And, alas, it was almost to be, this bastion against the increasing tide of philistinism.


Despite illusion and delusion I continue to buy interior design books – though in fewer number than previously. Conversely, I delve into my shelves and stacks far more than ever I did for, perhaps not so surprisingly, they prove to be more satisfactory than what is available in stores.

If there is anything missing from my collection of books it is a coherent history of 20th-century and 21st-century decorating and design. A history of residential decoration could be cobbled together from the books I own, but if anyone were interested in design rather than decoration he would have slim pickings. Interior decoration, still a massive if shrunken industry, is but a tiny part of the national market – contract or commercial design taking the largest segment.


Thus, if I were asked again to suggest a beginner's library for an aspiring student of interior design I would recommend first reading Becoming an Interior Designer: A Guide to Careers in Design by Christine Piotrowski – an expensive and rather dry introduction to the business of design and the difference between decoration and design. Beyond that, I'd suggest books about architecture and historical styles – the golden oldie by Sir Bannister Fletcher, A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method. For furniture styles and the history thereof, I suggest John Moreley's The History of Furniture: Twenty-Five Centuries of Style and Design in the Western Tradition, and because its just fascinating, Geoffrey Beard's Upholsterers & Interior Furnishings in England, 1530 -1840.



For my neighbour who asked me for recommendations I would amend my original list to include both Morley's and Beard's books with the further addition of The Inspiration of the Past and The Search for a Style by John Cornforth to provide historical context for all the practitioners, both of yesterday and today, of traditional design.

Regarding residential design the following photograph will show you where my tastes lie and I can heartily recommend each of the books shown.


The photographs by Richard Felber of John Richardson's library/writing room are from the last issue of HG published in July 1993. I still miss House and Garden – besides The World of Interiors, still the best interiors magazine there was. It was replaced by Domino, of all things.


I kept that last issue for years but where it now is I've no idea. My friend Will Merril mailed me his copy for the article about John Richardson's library and to my joy I found also the last published article about one my circles-within-circles decorators, Antony Childs. More about him next time.

23 comments:

  1. Despite all the comments to say that we don't need libraries with books, I can seldom find what I am looking for by just an on-line search. There are many, many books - not to mention periodicals - that are not available. Not to the casual researcher, anyway. Harvard University dumped their classical architecture books years ago and soon realized their mistake. I am glad you are in custodianship of the books you had recommended for your school. Books, even those used out-of-print copies, make welcome host/hostess gifts, by the way.

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    1. The Devoted Classicist, thank you and apologies for a late reply.

      There is much online that is useful as you say for the casual researcher but I really do wonder how those who are digitizing book and periodical content are doing so. Do they, for example, digitize photos and illustrations together with the text? I have heard that in some cases it is not happening. Many of the books I did not have room for went to another school in Atlanta and I'm glad of it.

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  2. This was a very timely post -- for me, personally. I am experiencing major upheaval in my life at the moment and downsizing is forcing me to reconsider what to do with my library. It is painful. I immediately recognized John Richardson's room -- I still have boxes of House&Garden and WOI that I can't part with it. I rarely buy books these days but someday I hope to add your (as of yet unwritten) monograph on Rory Cameron to my shelves. I am one of your fans who remains mostly silent but enjoys your musings tremendously. Susan Sobol

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    1. Susan Sobol, thank you.

      Downsizing is not always, initially, the positive step it will eventually become. We have done it done it three times and each time it has proved, in the end, to be a blessing. Painful, certainly, the decisions one must make, especially if forced on one – with books it is almost like choosing between friends – but once made ... life feels less cluttered.

      Thank you for what you say about Cameron's story!

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  3. The countless amenities of a library of years can bear only so much displacement by the travesties of surrogates we've been offered to date, that I do not expect to find the custody of books to be relegated to the indolent. Rather, I think your alarum is truly so pervasively held by now, that the real question is whether capital can be assuaged by a competitive rate of return on printing new works. I will tell you flatly, I cannot renounce the companionship of entities infinitely more active, in marginalia, fadings, spills and other evidence of honest wear, in favour of a repulsive little billboard tablet, hawking its new apps. I suggest as much in a posting of the same date, so I convey my regards, anonymously.

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    1. Anonymous, thank you.

      I understand fully when you write – "the companionship of entities infinitely more active, in marginalia, fadings, spills and other evidence of honest wear ... " but I love my iPad with its Kindle and iBook apps. Lacking shelf space I now buy most fiction as ebooks and some biography too, but have not begun to take the digital versions of magazines.

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    2. This is a bold step, mon cher. I do not expect to preserve an intellectual corpus of my life, any more than any other element of it, but I am cautious still about leaving nothing of it to an heir. I don't smash the Meissen just because I've given up dessert.

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    3. Anonymous, thank you. An excellent turn of phrase "I don't smash the Meissen .... !" It's the quality of the heir that bothers me and, if truth be told, the non-existence of heirs.

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  4. With major libraries continuing to toss large sections of their collections overboard in favor of computer lounges or the like--I had no clue, until reading TDC's comment above, that even Harvard was guilty--and with straitened publishers cutting underperforming publications or gutting them (just this morning, the Pulitzer-prize winning Chicago Sun Times jettisoned its entire photography staff) I totally believe that in the future, the kind of libraries we know as kids will revert to their original models of a few centuries back: private, subject-focused collections open only to a limited number of trusted members. Books themselves will go back to being curious artifacts that no one can afford to buy, let alone print, and people like us will end patronized as quaint oddballs--sort of like the Amish, although better to end up like the Amish than to end up like the Shakers.

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    1. Simply Grand, thank you.

      I had not heard about Harvard's actions either but I remember only quite recently an art department in a local state university being nonplussed by a gift of an alumnus's library – it seems it was considered just a load of old, dusty books without further interest.

      I fear you are right in your assessment of what libraries will become. It is perhaps inevitable and I wonder if it hasn't already happened.

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  5. Thank god I have two of the books in your penultimate photograph! What this says I am not sure. However, I do like a good Manhattan, and the first photograph makes my heart ache.

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    1. Daniel James Shigo, thank you.

      Which two, I wonder? Did I spot Tino Zervudachi's book the last time at your place, tucked away on the shelves?

      Knowing you like a well-made Manhattan you'll commiserate with me when I say I had the worst I've ever had yesterday at brunch. So bad, i had to finish it quickly to get the experience over with.

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    2. Kleinberg & Hayes. Those are the two on my shelf. Hayes is the is one I open often, just to absorb his quiet opulence, though this last word doesn't seem quite right. Warm minimalism? That might do it.

      Ah! So sorry to had a bad Manhattan. You'll just have to visit! I'll get out the "Barreled Manhattan" with its hint of nutmeg and cinnamon.

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    3. Daniel James Shigo, thank you.

      Kleinberg and Hayes, hey? Seems to me there's a closet modernist lurking in your soul.

      On Saurday, ever hopeful, I ordered a so-called 'southern manhattan martini' – bourbon, cynar, maple syrup, lemon juice, memphis BBQ bitters - and it was perhaps the most disgusting drink I've ever tasted. Redolent of rib shack sauce. Just awful.

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  6. I remember Tony Childs, he used to come over for drinks when I lived in D.C. So talented.

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    1. Dean Farris, thank you.

      I thought I had added you to my blog roll but found yesterday I had not so now you are there.

      I agree, Antony Childs was talented and in terms of clarity of design, sadly missed.

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  7. I would like to be an ignored house guest in your book-heavy rooms.

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  8. First, you know that I enjoy spending time perusing your book shelves. I always discover a book with which I am not familiar, and inevitably, I buy a copy for my own library.

    I unloaded quite a number of books a few years ago, and I regret it. It was only after the fact that I realized how useful those books really were.

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    1. The Peak of Chic, thank you.

      We all make room for new books, weeding what seems no longer of value but .... I regret it, too. BTW, you're welcome here to browse, chat, have a cocktail - whatever you wish when you want.

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  9. Paul Gervais de Bédée, thank you.

    Next time you are in Atlanta ....

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  10. Even though I consider myself a gourmand, I have never really understood the phrase "you are what you eat." I think a better one is "You are what you read". If a stranger went to my library and glanced at the shelves, he would quickly ascertain the kind of person I am from my interests via the books I have not only read, but most importantly, kept.

    My daughter keeps telling me to get rid of books I don't "need". Why that would be like taking off my right arm! She has even given me a Kindle (which has never been used). Every time there's a book I want to read I go through the agony Kindle or hardback...and the Kindle remains in the drawer.

    You and I have gone through this discussion a few times. Maybe when we are long gone, those who remain will have an understanding and greater appreciation for what we kept on the shelves.

    xxoo J

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    1. lindaraxa, thank you.

      I have an iPad on which there id the Kindle app and the iBook app and on both are lots of ebooks. I love them for the fiction and biographies I read a lot of. I tell myself it's because there is room no longer on the shelves and there really isn't but what I love is the convenience of having lots of books in one place, portable and of little weight.

      I think you might like the Kindle if you gave it a try. I was skeptical too but now fully converted to ereading for certain types of books.

      The shelves, on the other hand, as for you are an ongoing pleasure.

      I hope you are well. Next time you're in town let me know.

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  11. I am spending this beautiful sunny day inside catching up on reading both the blog rolls of my favorite blogs and in books that I recently acquired. As always, your posts speak to me and cause me to remember the late greats like Arthur Smith and to think about where we are today in both design and the state of books and book shops. I am 38 and do not own a Kindle or a Nook or whatever the other brands versions are called. I need to feel the paper and flip the pages with my fingers, not a button on a device. I know that many my age went digital years ago but I just cannot. The fact that libraries of universities are getting rid of books is so very sad. SO sad. There must be losses in these actions. Everything cannot be replaced in digital format, can it? Regarding your recommendations of current design books: I was happy to see the Eric Cohler book at the top of the pile. The room on the cover, though you will not see this written in the book, was designed by Eric Cohler AND Jeffery McCullough for the 2006 Kips Bay Show House and was billed as such in the journal for the house. And now I have to add to my to-do list to run out and purchase the Thad Hays book. But not until tomorrow since today is for catching up on The Blue Remembered Hills! Best, Jeffery McCullough

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