Backsides / interiors : Tracing a treatment of backsides in domestic interiors

Sammanfattning: Interiors are often dealing with the notion of front and back. Physically, with walls facing the occupant and concealing a “behind”, a backside, perhaps an adjacent room. But also, in organization; “in the back of the building” meaning the furthest away from the entrance or from the street, the public. There is also a variety of interiors that are backsides them self. Spaces that, in contrast to fronts or “primary” spaces not are intended to be shown perhaps because they are occupied by functions, or people that for some reason are desired to be hidden. The idea of a backside, though, whether considered good or bad, what belongs there and not, has shifted over time. I believe that this is a truly cultural issue, governed by social constructions that stabilize and become customs in the fabrication of interiors. In this project have I studied and reworked the information from a few domestic interiors. Through the methods of inverting and full-scale construction, have I investigated what a “backside of an interior” is, what it does and how the treatment of it has changed over time. In my studies, I have found that a contemporary apartment interior attempts to seamlessly exclude the “backside”, just like the parlours of a 100 years old bourgeoise palace. But in the contemporary apartment, it is because of praxis and standardization, and not because of what ideas govern the design. By building a full-scale part of an actual contemporary apartment - where I invert and reorganize the order of how it would have been costume - the praxis is brought to light and questioned.