February 19, 2010 | Articles Magazine

“When it comes to interiors, Eastern design principles are more relevant than ever”

According to Denman, Shashi Caan- president of the International Federation of Interior Architects and Designers (IFI) – has called for a closer inspection of ‘Eastern’ design principles, citing that interior design has long been largely Euro-centric. While this might sound pleasing to some, further reading into Selina Denman’s article for ContructionWeekOnline.com had me doing a double take. From what initially appears as a call for a greater understanding of so-called ‘eastern’ principles, Caan’s – along with some other voices’ – effort here seems to be a hopeful construction of a faux-pas that can only help to confuse the innocent layman.

While it might be true that the recent focus on sustainability and “sustainable design” has led many – and not just ‘the West’ to consider the broader impacts of design, the IFI president’s particular focus on Japanese principles – Makoto, Heisei, Wa, Shizen, Kanji – to name a few, seems to resonate more like a cluster of marketing bells trying to usher in a new fad than a call for universality in design.

Caan’s call to Japanese principles in design looks increasingly thin when placed beside the work of practitioners of the modern movement in architecture; and even pre-modern architects like the American Frank Lloyd Wright, who had gathered inspiration from the so-called east, looking to examples like the Katsura Palace and Japanese modular systems, while gleaning lessons in the relationship between architecture’s interior and its exterior. Japan-ness in design has been around long enough for us to acknowledge that it is probably untrue that it is only now that these things are gaining in popularity; to put it in Marie-Noelle Swiderski’s words, “The growing popularity of Japanese food is mirrored by changing attitudes towards wellness, where eastern-inspired spas, treatments and attitudes are moving into the mainstream. Eastern music, fashion, artifacts and accessories have also travelled well, as have principles such as feng shui, which have been wholeheartedly embraced in the West.”

The realization of Swiderski’s blatant conflation of ‘Japanese’ with ‘Eastern’ comes as soon as we hear ‘feng shui’ and ‘Japanese’ in the same statement – and confirms the sweeping generalization that only a managing director can make with what one could call ignorance and superficiality. “Balance”, “fluidity”, “simplicity”, “precision” and “craft” are only some of the other name-dropped terms that are sounded out throughout the article, and it can only further serve to shock one how a journal like Construction Week can continue to publish such opinions.

To her credit, Caan’s clumsy call for eastern-adoption is softened by her emphasis on a cultural cross-pollination and some reference to colonial adoption of local influences – suggesting a careful courtship as opposed to a whole-sale cultural invasion. But Like Denman’s groundless rhetoric that asserts new paradigms of living and culture without supporting them, and the way in which restaurants like Nobu, Zuma, and Okku are taken as precedents for such a romance with Japan to blossom; one can only confirm suspicions as to the superficial nature in which some – and not all- interior design is self serving and self-referential, disconnected from context. And with its hands deep in the pockets of capitalism and hedonism (not to say that architecture doesn’t) , it can only serve to further hypnotize the customer and journalist.

If the growing divide between the architect’s sensitivity and the interior design’s heavy handedness is anything to go by, this article is a sure indication.

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JJ is the co-founder of 5ft Creatives and is presently enrolled as a graduate student at the Yale School of Architecture.