New York School to Host Design Symposium

The symposium will address contemporary interior design issues.

by Mairi Beautyman -- Interior Design, 3/7/2007

What does the future hold for interior design? How will interior design students shape this future? From March 30-31 Parsons the New School for Design in New York will present After Taste: New Agendas for the Study of Interior Design, a symposium addressing contemporary interior design issues including these hot topics.

Marking the centennial of the interior design program at Parsons, the two-day event will feature lectures and round table discussions with industry professionals. Four topics will be approached. Lois Weinthal, director of interior design at Parsons explains, "The Dweller’s Trace will address the state of theory in interior design; More Room will explore alternative sites, users and technologies; Class Room, will provide an overview of alternative pedagogical models; and Outside In, will investigate progressive practices at the outer edges of the field."

Participants include keynote speaker Petra Blaisse (Inside Outside, Amsterdam), Constance Adams (designer for NASA’s International Space Station), Donald Albrecht (independent curator and adjunct curator of Architecture and Design, Museum of the City of New York), Andrew Blauvelt (design director and curator, Walker Art Center), Beatriz Colomina (architectural historian and theorist, Princeton University); and interior designers Jamie Drake, Kitty Hawks, and David Ling, among others.

"Today, the study of the interior has become a hybrid of environmental psychology, fashion design, product design, architecture, material science, and cultivated taste," says Kent Kleinman, chair of the architecture, interior design, and lighting department at Parsons. "Now at a time of unusually rapid technological and cultural evolution, it is time for a critical assessment of the field."

The event is organized by the department of architecture, interior design, and lighting.