Dear friends, If you have read any interior design books/articles, visited a few websites on the internet, you will find the word theme used quite often. What exactly is a theme-based design? A theme according to me is a collection of various parameters of design of an interior space. So a theme may include a certain set colors, materials, repetition of a certain element, such as a decorative item, etc... Primarily there are two basic themes under which a design can be categorized, 1)Oriental 2)Contemporary. Oriental Bedroom Design Theme: These kind of themes have a still drilled down niche design themes, such as country, rustic, vintage, elegant, etc... One of the major thing about these kind of themes is that much emphasis is given on the natural beauty of any material. These designs are close to nature or are shown to be close to nature. These kind of design styles are very rarely found in the urban city interiors. Mostly the countryside homes adopt these kind if themes, to replicate the flora and fauna of the outside environment. The designer tries to include the patters seen in nature, such as leaves, flowers, plants. All these natural patterns are seen on wallpaper patterns, decorative lamps, curtains, furniture upholstery, wall paintings, etc... Homes which are build on country side such as farm houses, the scarcity of space is not an issue, but this creates another problem as far as designing interiors is concerned. A bedroom, no matter of what size it is, requires some basic furniture elements as functional needs, such as a double bed, dressing table, wardrobes, study tables, a book shelf etc.. It is sometimes possible that because of the large spaces, the bedroom looks empty after the furniture is arranged. At such times "decoration" plays a major role. During ancient years the palaces and castles had such large built spaces, where extensive use of decoration was used in the form of paintings, heavy decorative flooring patterns, carvings, moldings as a decorative architectural elements. So in this oriental design trend, decoration of the space using various accessories plays a major role. Contemporary design Theme: These kind of design themes are very new as compared to the previously mentioned oriental design theme. But how did the designers came along using these kind of designs? During the starting years of the 20th century, the "Industrial Revolution" in Europe changed the face of our planet. It was easy to design and manufacture goods on a mass scale with amazing speed and efficiency. This created a flood of industries in and around the cities. These cities attracted large amount of people to migrate from rural areas to city centers in search of a living. Because of this migratory effect there was a sudden need of housing requirement for the workers. This is where the concept of an "apartment" was introduced. Because of the pressure of demand, a school of thoughts emerged within the architects, who believed that "simplicity" is the need of today's era. They thought that, the design of the building has to be simple and easy to build, then only we can compete with the growing demand of housing needs in cities. That's why simple designs with mostly plane and square faces with square or rectangular openings were used. These forms and masses were easy to build and still beautiful. If everything from "safety pins" to "space ships" could be built on a mass scale, why not "buildings". The school of thought believed that a plane rectangular form is in itself beautiful and they proved this using infinite permutations and combinations of the basic square form. That's why decoration was given a second preference. Today we call this school of thought as "contemporary". In contemporary design every element has an order. That's why in today's modern interior design, simplicity is the key to an efficient design. Unlike the previous oriental design theme, the contemporary design theme states that any kind of architectural decoration is always dependent on the basic form of the building. The form itself is so beautiful, that the need to further decorate it is not required. Today's modern interiors spaces are simple to understand, simple to construct, and project a kind of simplicity. By reading the above paragraphs some of you might say that, decoration is no more needed. But this is not true. I am not trying to force some ideas here. But most people confuse the whole concept of "Interior Design" and "Interior Decoration". Both are quite different and both have a unique value in today's complex society. Decoration was something the primitive man learned, looking at the nature around him. He saw plants, flowers, birds, animals and tried to copy these elements. We still use "embroidery" on our dresses. But the modern design theory says that any sort of decoration can only "enhance" the existing form, but can not be an element of design. What does this mean? In the above said example the "embroidery" pattern can certainly add to the beauty of the cloth, but the modern theory denies to accept the cloth to be of a cheap quality. It states that every form, texture, material, shape is in itself beautiful and must be accepted as it is. Because of this the need to further decorate it does not arise. Thus decoration whether used in architecture or elsewhere is always dependant on the form on which it is used, but design is an independent entity which does not need any justification from the external factors. The two design themes mentioned above are still widely used today. The user must look upon them from a point of view of what best suits his/her likes and dislikes. Only then can you give yourself and your family the best quality of living. I hope this article was informative to everyone. Copyright Shrinivas Vaidya |
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