부산대학교 도서관

In the nineteenth century, the piano became an important social, no less than musical, instrument of middle-class domesticity, and its presence in North American homes only increased in the first few decades of the twentieth century. The piano was a large-scale consumer item that in some ways prefigured later technologies, such as the phonograph, radio receiver, television and hi-fi stereo. While musicologists and organologists have addressed social practices associated with the piano, their studies have not considered the role of interior design in the instrument’s appearance and placement or the sensorial experience of the piano in domestic interiors. Drawing from a broad range of materials – from interior decoration advice literature to prefabricated house catalogues, middle-brow fiction to parlour piano music – this chapter argues that the piano played a potent role in the socio-spatial structure of middle-class homes. It provided both a focal and acoustic point in the multisensory design of the middle-class living room. The visceral tactility of keyboard performance on the one hand and the spatial penetration of its tones on the other combined to create a polysensory experience for residents and guests alike. By examining a variety of cultural representations and products associated with the piano in the first quarter of the twentieth century, this chapter encourages a reconsideration of the sounds and sights of middle-class domesticity.
The physical world is experienced and understood through the five senses. This is especially true of the interior where decorators and designers, both professional and amateur, have long experimented with, embraced and harnessed new materials, objects and technologies to enhance or heighten sensory awareness and wellbeing. Yet a discussion of sight, touch, smell, hearing and taste is too often overlooked in the histories and historiography of interior design and design history. Interiors do not solely exist in abstract or inchoate form: it is through the senses that the body navigates and negotiates the experiences that interior design offers. Drawing from fields including design history, design studies and sensory studies, The senses in interior design charts the somewhat fragmentary histories of how the senses have been mobilized within various forms of interior. Grouped into three thematic clusters exploring sensory politics, aesthetic entanglements and sensual economies respectively, the contributions brought together in this volume shed light on sensory expressions and experiences of interior design throughout history. Examining domestic and public interiors from the late sixteenth century to today, the authors give back to the body its central role in the practices, understanding and uses of interiors. In so doing, they explore fundamental considerations about identities, social structures and politics that reveal the significance of the senses in all aspects of interior design and decoration.