The Birth of Interior Design
Engaged in ethical and political reflection on modernity and its democratic expansion (which led him to join the ranks of the fledgling French Communist Party in 1924), Léon Moussinac developed a body of thought on the arts that emerged with industry and/or were linked to it, notably cinema and the applied arts (also known as the decorative arts). This point was of paramount importance to him, as the arts of the industrial era played a significant role in preparing the public for the advent of renewal. Indeed, industry—geared toward mass production—transformed society and, through the use of science, altered the environment and living conditions. For him, new social needs, new materials, and adaptation to technical means of reproduction… must guide the applied arts toward the abandonment of ornamentation. The necessary reconciliation with industry, adaptation to utility (“form follows function”), and harmony with materials (“respect for the material”) became the fundamental principles of decorative art, following the path taken by architecture since the late nineteenth century.
At the same time, signs of a new sensibility are beginning to emerge. This sensibility calls for forms that satisfy the eye only when they satisfy the mind, that are beautiful only when well suited to their function. These aesthetic principles met with fierce opposition at a time when all the styles of the past were making a strong comeback and competing ostentatiously in stores, various exhibitions, and sales catalogs. However, prejudices, prevailing tastes, and commercial rules could not halt the rise of furniture, now regarded as a form of architecture. The resulting disappearance of ornamentation was, for Léon Moussinac and the proponents of the modern movement, proof that the modern world was transforming the very idea of beauty. On this path of renewal, he encountered and supported the aspirations of a number of designers, including Francis Jourdain (1876–1958). They agreed that from then on, the creator of the modern environment must “wrest art from the excesses of imagination and aestheticism”[1]—in other words, from Art Nouveau and the so-called Art Deco movement. Finally freed from the prejudices and other obstacles that clutter the mind, logic can reign and, in turn, create beauty, inspire dreams, and establish a style. The work of art is now presented as “a sort of organic or organized system […] which implies a choice, and therefore a will, a decision of the intellect,” as the designer Francis Jourdain[2] would later write; and to be satisfying, it must bear the traces of this “organization,” of this “logic.” By abandoning all pretense and all falsehood, works of art, through their simplicity, sincerity, and honesty, regain their dignity. They thus meet the demands of the modern mind in search of order and logic, according to Léon Moussinac and Francis Jourdain.
Pierre Chareau (1883–1950), René Herbst (1891–1982), Jacques-Émile Rulhmann (1879–1933), Louis Süe (1875–1968), and André Mare (1885–1932) were all part of this new movement alongside Francis Jourdain. They were the pioneers of “interior architecture ”[3]. Léon Moussinac had just coined this term for them, since they took “the stance ”[4] to be “more concerned with building than with decorating, to arrive at a logic that prioritizes, first and foremost, the principles of durability, hygiene, and practical needs, thereby succeeding, as a result, in satisfying—less through detail than through the overall harmony—the harmony of lines, planes, and colors—our compelling sensibility. Thus, reaffirming that function or use determines creation—the fundamental starting point—we understand that art is achieved only when a piece of furniture transcends its purely functional and practical role to participate in the living rhythm, one might say the emotion, of the whole.” Together with architect and film set designer Robert Mallet-Stevens (1886–1945), Léon Moussinac and the pioneers of interior architecture would establish new designs characterized by clarity and logic. This momentum would lead to the schism that would occur within the Société des Artistes Décorateurs at the time of the 1925 International Exhibition of Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris. It culminated in the founding in 1929 of the Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM) by Robert Mallet-Stevens, Francis Jourdain, Hélène Henry (1891–1965), and René Herbst. They were joined in 1930 by Pierre Chareau, Louis Sognot (1892–1970), Charlotte Alix (1892–1987), Jean Burkhalter (1895–1982), and Jean Prouvé (1901–1984), among others.
Rose-Marie Stolberg is an art historian specializing in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, as well as the relationship between art and politics, and conducts research on art in France during the 1920s.
She teaches creative dynamics and cultural discoveries and serves as thesis advisor for fifth-year students at the Académie Charpentier.
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[1] Léon Moussinac, Francis Jourdain, Pierre Cailler Éditeur, Geneva, 1955, p. 28.
[2] Francis Jourdain, “Le rationalisme en art,” Les Cahiers Rationalistes, no. 57, March 1937, p. 63.
[3] Intérieurs I, 58 plates published under the direction of Léon Moussinac, Collection documentaire d’art moderne, Éditeur Albert Lévy, Paris, 1924.
[4] Ibid.
