Book Launch for 'Reassembling the Social Interior'

Description

This event launched 'Reassembling the social interior: Historical spaces from contemporary viewpoints', a new book from academic publishers, Manchester University Press, Studies in Design & Material Culture.

This event included short talks from the book’s editors and contributing writers, followed by a Q&A session and exhibition of related objects/displays related to practice-led chapters.

This edited volume features new and original research, revealing the richly layered work of artists, designers, craftspeople, landscape gardeners and architects, and their contributions to the construction of interiors, and interrelated exteriors, of the past. Surveying a range of historical periods, the book explores collective meanings embedded within the furnishings and fittings of houses and homes, public and private buildings.

Contributors to the book consider how these spaces have powerful significance for contemporary audiences, particularly in ways that are relatable to shared experiences of work, leisure, family, community, power and politics.

In Reassembling the social interior: Historical spaces from contemporary viewpoints, the authors describe the communicative and interpretative qualities of works that connect with the present-day, by reflecting on, remaking and re-imagining, places, spaces and objects that once populated people’s lives. Palatial to austere, it foregrounds human relationships in the plan, design and creation of homes, interiors and sites of the past.

Jennifer Gray is a Lecturer in the School of Design at Edinburgh College of Art
Anne Nellis Richter is an Independent Scholar and Adjunct Faculty at Smith College
Helen McCormack is Reader in Art and Design History in the department of Design History & Theory at Glasgow School of Art

Period	11 Nov 2025
Event type	Conference
Location	London, United KingdomShow on map