Priscila Lena Farias / Anna Calvera Marcos da Costa ... - Blucher

MALUF, Marina Kosovski / SOUZA LEITE, João de / MAGALHÃES, Cláudio Freitas de
According to Forty (2005), the ideas of the Arts and Crafts movement
were quickly incorporated by architects and designers who
created the so-called “art furniture”. As the domestic environment
start to be considered a sign of its inhabitants’ character, people
began to put effort into producing a satis factory image of themselves,
based on values of honesty and simplicity. The idea was ‘to
establish a whole form of beauty that roughly corresponded to the
moral virtues that the reformers of aesthetics believed should be
represented in the home.’ (Ibid: 153). Decoration manuals began
to repudiate the “bad taste” of excess, and to appreciate simplicity
in spaces and objects.
The principles of good taste in decoration thus started to embody
a correlation between beauty and morality, which resulted in a
particular taste for an aesthetic of lightness:
The general principles of “art furniture” were to reduce the amount
of furniture and create more space in rooms. Heavily upholstered
furniture was eschewed in favor of wooden-framed chairs and settees
with loose cushions. (...) There seems to be more space in the
room, an effect achieved by less furniture, fewer ornaments, and
the white painted ceiling and wall-panelling. (Forty 2005: 111-112)
This quest for a morality of design resulted in a reformulation of
what constituted “good taste”, which involved a return to simplicity
that was expressed in the forms, materials and the finishing of
home furnishings. In other words, rather than luxury and excess, a
simplicity of shapes and materials was prized, which was characterized
by a process of “elimination” – of fabrics, ornaments, imitation
- which resulted in a lighter appearance. This constitutes one
of the pillars of the idea that equated lightness with good taste.
Essentially, the aesthetic of lightness in mid-nineteenth century
furniture design is recognized as an expression of moral virtue
and honesty in the context of domestic space, which became a
place for intimacy, refuge, and the expression of the nature of its
inhabitants, in response to the social and cultural upheavals experienced
during industrialization.
3. Beauty and hygiene in the home
This “reduction” and “simplification” of furniture – initially related
to cultural transformations in which household objects were associated
with moral values – reached its peak in the twentieth century,
when another aspect entered the home: the idea of hygiene.
In the early nineteenth century there were already concerns
about bodily cleanliness, but these were still related to the morality
preached by the church, or a growing number of doctors. The
equivalence between cleanliness and hygiene began to be formulated
in the mid-nineteenth century but only really took hold in the
twentieth century, with new scientific discoveries that associated
germs with diseases. (Lupton & Miller 1996, Forty 2005)
In the 1860s sanitation reforms were introduced across Europe.
They were scientifically based on the discoveries of French biolo-
gist Louis Pasteur and British surgeon Joseph Lister about bacteria
and asepsis, when ‘everything that might be described as dirt
was now linked with the transmission of diseases’ (Forty 2005:
160). Thereafter, cleanliness ceased to be a problem of the State
and began to be understood as something that depended on individual
actions, and gained particular importance in the privacy of
the home. Around 1920, a reform movement started that sought
to spread the principles of hygiene to all classes (Forty 2005, Cardoso
2000, Lupton and Miller 1996).
Thus, as stated by Cardoso, ‘the well known virtues of the home –
comfort, domesticity, well-being – were joined by new standards
of cleanliness and efficiency.’ (Cardoso 2000: 63)
In Bathroom, Kitchen and the Aesthetic of Waste: A Process of
Elimination, Lupton and Miller address the relationship between
the issue of cleaning of homes and the simplification of modern
American design aesthetics. In this sense, the authors stress that
‘various consumer goods, from packaging, appliances, and furniture
to interior arquitecture, began to acquire a vigourous new
physique: the plush fabrics, carved moldings, and intricate decorations
of Victorian domestic objects were rejected as dangerous
breeding grounds for germs and dust.’ (Lupton & Miller 1996: 2).
It is possible to draw some connections between certain aspects
of this “overtone of hygiene” and an “overtone of lightness”. First
of all, upholstery was rejected because it accumulates dust. That
is, when withdrawing what covered the structure of the furniture,
the weight – both physical and apparent – was also eliminated.
Similarly, ornaments that were too intricate began to be considered
unhygienic, and were therefore eliminated, again resulting in
a lighter appearance.
‘The aesthetics of cleaning has become the norm in the home landscape,’
says Forty, and has been widely accepted by the general
public, thus defining the criteria for beauty among architects and
designers, while this standard has also reinforced the principles of
hygiene in people’s lives and homes. For all aspects of life, there is
an optimal hygiene solution – and this solution also corresponds
to removing surplus elements from objects.
He also points out that although it seems logical that design can be
used to convey ideas of cleanliness, ‘the belief that design, rather
than, say, prayer, custom or morality, might contribute to health
originated in the eighteenth century, with attempts to find ways
of reducing mortality in prisons and hospitals.” (Forty 2005: 170)
Experiments with more airy spaces that improved the health of
patients were extended to housing, prisons and schools, whose
design aimed to improve the circulation of air. Doctors wrote papers
about how a hospital bed or a child’s desk should take into
account its users’ health.
During the hospital reforms, it was deemed important to design
spaces that had better air circulation and were easy to clean,
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