I’ve always thought any successful marriage is comprised of two people in union, one doing what the other cannot.  After all, if you both bring the same thing to the table, one of you is unnecessary.  The relationship between the built and the decorative should be a strong confederation – one elevating the other.

I know a lot of architects roll their well-heeled eyes when an interior decorator is brought into a project. Watch an architect glaze over when the topic of drapery stacks or rug sizes arises.  To make it worse, architects often want to do their own interiors so as to avoid the whole messy ordeal.  When this happens, the result is usually a lone Barcelona chair accompanied by an equally disconsolate chrome and glass table (ironically, both designed by fellow architects).  That’s not an interior;  that’s a Vanity Fair ad.  Just add a vacant model staring into space pondering…..something Nietzschean, probably.  I’ve worked for professional models.  Despite common preconceptions, they prefer comfy chairs too.

I assert many in my profession can learn a lot from decorators.  They actually know how big a sofa is.  They know bed widths.  They know how to lay out furniture in a room.  If we, as architects, have handed them a fairly sturdy and attractive girl, they know how to dress and put makeup on her.

I suppose I hold interior designers and decorators in such high regard because our office has always been solidly based in an interior-rich architectural philosophy.  Simply put, our houses are designed from the inside-out.  They’re not sculptures in which hapless owners have to bend their lives around to inhabit.  We welcome furniture!  That’s one of the reasons we began doing our own interiors in the first place (with nary a single Barcelona chair in sight).  Over the years, we’ve also have had amazing opportunities to form alliances with a lot of talented interior designers and have been made all the better for it.  Sit in one meeting with John Saladino, Albert Hadley or Nancy Braithwaite, and I guarantee your mind will grow as hungry as my recent student audience.  We as architects should always be open to learning, especially from our decorative cohorts.  A few of our learning experiences are beautifully illustrated by the following photographs (a partial wedding album, as it were):

Interiors by Betsy Brown

Interiors by Tracey Hickman

Interiors by Rela Gleason

Interiors by Cindy Smith

Interiors by Denise Macey

Interiors by Melani Turner

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