To be or not to be – critical, that is

An interest in history has served me well in my musings about interior design and decorators. What has also served me well – though this, perhaps, is self-delusion – is my desire not to hurt feelings by being negative about my fellows or their work. The feeling that it is inappropriate to be critical is a form of self-censorship - a quality I do not, necessarily, adhere to in my private life. The idea that to criticize publicized work is to attack the maker is a demonstrable fallacy.

It may not be surprising that there is no formal structure for critique of interior design. What is surprising, however, is how little criticism there is – and, believe me, I've looked. Even in the dry-as-old-arseholes textbooks that are supposedly improving students all over the country, there's none. Oh, there are countless expressions of awe bespattering the blogosphere at the offerings in designer monographs and show houses and even on the part of editors about what is shown between the pages of their magazines, but wide-eyed reaction is neither critique nor an educated response by an observer. If a lobotomized "OMFG" (offensive on a number of levels) is as far as it goes, then we're in trouble.

Critique and criticism are closely related, but I want to use critique in the sense of impartial analysis and criticism with the meaning of personal judgement. Having said that, I am aware that the two at times can overlap.

For example, this chair could be critiqued against established criteria of proportion, line, function, suitability and historical accuracy. It could be criticized using a more personal set of standards where a conclusion about its looks and comfort is quickly reached – "love it" or "hate it." Both approaches are valid, but what complicates matters is the fact that it is part of a well-known and, it must be said, superb decorator's furniture collection. Some might say, therefore, that one should suspend judgement and simply accept her taste as being correct.

If branding trumps all, then the battle between opinion and analysis is lost before it is joined. The sole criterion is that of sales and marketing: was this chair a good seller for this decorator and has it advanced her brand value? Given the decorator's pedigree and industry status, it matters not that the chair legs might be considered stubbily ill-proportioned, the seat height unhappily low, the relationship between oval and rectangle in the back unfortunate.  Nor does its lightly implied Italian regal provenance add any weight on the plus side.

However, if one were to fly in the face of history, snap one's fingers at brand marketing, and attempt a formal structure of critique, what form might it take? One possible answer is something that every good designer already uses - a working knowledge of the elements and principles of design. At their simplest, these elements and principles are scale, proportion, balance, rhythm, emphasis and harmony. Concept could be included in the list – perhaps the most misunderstood of all, concept is frequently and erroneously interpreted as theme. There are other elements of design, of course, smell, light and color, sound, and ornament. An overriding principle and less tangible for discussion because it depends on individual requirements is suitability – not for magazine publication, which has become a norm, rather appropriateness for the client's life and (heaven forfend!) social aspirations.

Today, "the market" is de facto the sole criterion by which anything is judged. The best-seller lists rank books by their sales, rather than their literary merit. The value of a work of art is measured by what it brings at auction. Engineers calculate the likelihood of this or that catastrophic failure and decide whether or not a particular safety feature cost is "worth" the lives that it might save. More people watch Fox News than CNN, so the former is the "better" "news" channel. The value of a college degree is expressed in how much more money the graduate will make in a lifetime. Everything has its ROI.

But there are other criteria by which value can be judged (I don't mean Keats' Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know) the GRH for example. The Kingdom of Bhutan is the first country to measure not just GDP but also Gross National Happiness. Interesting concept, don't you think?

So, you may ask, what has all this to do with Geoffrey Bennison? Well, the answer to that is now yours alone.  My answer is simply that for me, in decoration, (and, yes, I recognize this is a clear case of what is called brand-identification) Bennison could do no wrong. That, being my personal opinion, is my criticism of his work, short and simple though it is.

To critique his work, on the other hand, we must consider those criteria mentioned earlier – scale, proportion, balance, rhythm, emphasis and harmony, along with concept and suitability. If you agree with my criteria for critique perhaps you would like to consider how well this room by Geoffrey Bennison meets them and let me know what you think.

In subsequent posts, I shall return to the principles and elements of design as I consider the state of modern-day interior design.

Photographs of Sir Alfred Munnings's erstwhile studio by Ken Kirkwood from English Style, Suzanne Slesin and Stafford Cliff, Thames and Hudson, 1984.

I'm not loving ...

One could argue that, being based on clearly defined elements and principles, interior design is an art form. In the same way that art evokes emotion, reaction, and response, so do rooms. In some ways, rooms are sculptures that one can walk into - a form of installation art created by a designer and commissioned by a client.

So if interior design is an art, why then is there so little formal criticism of it? Art and architecture magazines are filled with reasoned critiques: the New Yorker carries occasional descriptive and well reasoned articles on architecture, as does New York magazine.

But where, outside of design school juries and client presentations, are the interior design critics?

Shelter magazines generally do not critique interior design, they simply describe, and sometimes gush. The same is true of the ID blogs – at least those that I read. (It could be of course, that I'm reading too few.) Magazines, designers and decorators have common interests which tends to rule out criticism, and bloggers are more likely to write about what they like so there is a natural tendency for the positive to be represented. Yet it is from critique that one learns - in the same way a dancer learns to dance by being told how to improve. Exposure, understanding and the ability to compare and contrast are the means by which one learns and improves.

Those who dare to critique design are often faced with the retort, “well, could you do any better?” the implication is that critique is the same as criticism, and that both are a form of personal attack. But to my mind this misses the point. Few restaurant critics are also chefs. One does not need to direct movies to be a film critic. And an interior design critic need not practice to be able to critique it.

However, one does need to know something of what one is talking about: something about interior design.

Malcom Gladwell in his book Outliers says that there is a rule of thumb: to be good at anything takes about 10,000 hours of practice. Hours which must to be spent before the point of mastery is reached. The same is true of critique: it requires understanding, study and above all exposure to a lot of the subject matter – in our case, a lot of looking at and thinking about rooms, the way they look and the way they work. That takes dedication. It’s not that enough that you just wake up and decide to bitch. Knowledge, dedication and a degree of passion are required to deliver a meaningful critique.