Between a Duck and a Decorated Shed
Instagrammable Interiors
“‘Good’ is always a question of time. Short term pleasure is totally different than long term bliss … Instagrammable means a short term impact, good design means long lasting smart solutions. Nanosecond vs lifetime … It is not a question of scale of values, just a scale of time. We sometimes need nanosecond visual impact for a good long lasting life” — Mathieu Lehanneur
Since its launch in 2010, Instagram has become an indispensable tool amongst those in the interiors and design industry; unlike Facebook and Twitter, Instagram is aesthetically driven and can offer immediate creative inspiration. It’s also an invaluable marketing tool, and as it’s grown, so has the opportunity to build a professional following. Arguably, the very nature of Instagram reflects design itself, that inspiration can be found in everything — creatives, artists, designers and dealers alike can curate a visual gallery from which to represent and promote themselves; and in doing so, they are able to bring followers into their own personal universe, thus creating the sort of rapport that would be un-achievable through any other medium. After all, the role of interior design is to provide clients and consumers with a particular lifestyle, or an improved standard of living. Instagram is a powerful means through which a designer can portray that lifestyle (whether true or fabricated) to an essentially captive audience. For better or worse, thanks to Instagram, interior design is now more accessible than at any point in history, and to that extent it’s arguably egalitarian in its making art and design available to a global audience.
Before the advent of social media, developing a client base was a slow and laborious process; without recourse to contacts or a private income, it was done by word of mouth or reputation after years spent working for one of the doyennes of interior design. There was a strict hierarchy in which trends came from the top down, with the likes of Madeleine Castaing, David Hicks and Francois Catroux, patronized by editors at Vogue, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar. Interior design has always been an incredibly competitive industry and Instagram has played a pivotal role in levelling the playing field for a generation of young designers; gaining likes and hitting the popular explore page might open up a world of potential clients whom, in the ordinary course of events, they might not encounter. Of course, with the resultant deluge of design-related Instagram accounts, the pace of design is unprecedented. An increasing reliance on smartphones and related technologies has been shown to have a negative impact on our ability to pay attention and process visual imagery. In terms of innovation, it means designers are forced to work harder so that the spaces we visit don’t begin to blur into one another. Instagram has effectively altered the velocity and business of interior design.
The Blue Bar at The Berkeley, London (2002) designed by David Collins
The Connaught Bar, London (2008) designed by David Collins
For much of the twentieth century, interiors trends were measured in decades and now, they change with the seasons. Designing for Instagram has ergo become somewhat cyclical, akin to a snake consuming itself: people like the things they see on Instagram, and they’re on Instagram because people like them. For this very reason, the platform is abound with issues of plagiarism and infringement of intellectual property rights. Similarly, so many manufacturers and makers are vying for attention that their designs are often so alike it’s bordering on parody. The influencer economy is big business, and accusations of imitations and copies come thick and fast; the interiors industry isn’t any different. Designers will often post images of others work without the relevant attribution, i.e. making it clear that it’s not their own. It’s often hard to tell if an image was posted by the designer or a design-influencer; with little if any policing, professionals are forced to patrol the platform so as to ensure their work is properly credited, or to call out those unethically appropriating imagery. Of course the majority of those scrolling through Instagram don’t care about provenance, as long as the image is appealing.
As a result, clients are increasingly asking that designers integrate features into projects that people will photograph and post on Instagram. “Now everybody sees good design, everybody formulates an opinion,” Brittney Hart, co-founder and principal of New York-based practice Husband Wife, said at the Dezeen Awards, “everyone thinks about what their work looks like photographed and everyone thinks about what the Instagrammable moment is in their work.” The phenomenon of the Instagrammable moment has now become so widespread that Australian studio Valé Architects has created a guide showing other architects how to do it. Clients are increasingly concerned by the impact of social media and the positive impact it can have on their business, and as a result, the design of interiors and Instagram have become increasingly intertwined. Designers are frequently being asked to embrace social media, thinking of interiors as a way in which to improve a businesse’s online visibility. The real risk is that everything will start looking the same; even among the pantheon of AD100 designers, it sometimes seems like every other interior has same Jeanneret armchair and Serge Mouille light fittings.
Annabel’s Nightclub, London (2018) by Martin Brudnizki Design Studio
Owners and operators in retail and hospitality have always aimed to draw in customers with beautifully designed, seductive spaces; it’s nothing new. However, in the era before social media, the primary concern of any interior designer was how a space would make its occupants feel, through its atmospheric qualities, and any question of how that interior might look in photographs was of secondary concern. Instagram-centred design means that those traditional notions have been turned on their head. Not only does Instagram play a key role in the way in which clients are communicating a brief to designers, but it affects the way in which people interact with and inhabit those resultant spaces. In Learning from Las Vegas, architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown developed a design distinction between a “duck” and a “decorated shed”, depending on the building’s decorative form. A “duck” is defined as: “where the architectural systems of space, structure, and program are submerged and distorted by an overall symbolic form.” A “decorated shed” on the other hand, is “where systems of space and structure are directly at the service of program, and ornament is applied independently.”
While there may no longer be a market for the sort of glowing, overtly kitsch advertising — billboards, signs, neons — that Venturi and Scott-Brown wrote about, the aesthetic is back, with a millennial agenda. Digital natives want Instagram-worthy lives, and so the way a room looks when photographed becomes of paramount importance. More so than ever businesses want to make their premises attractive to social media influencers, with the assumption that it will lure in followers looking for a photo opportunity. Designers are being asked by clients to create spaces with very little direction other than for it to be “Instagrammable”. Of course, if the aim is to create spaces that are merely photo-worthy and full of surprises, an obvious question arises as to whether it’s interior design in the strictest sense, or scenography.
Hôtel Saint-Georges, Beirut, Lebanon (1955) by Jean Royère
Interiors designed for social media are predisposed to the kitschy and attention grabbing, and the danger is that they will begin to appear stale and inauthentic; people will go once, feel like they’ve experienced it, and never go back again, resulting in a fairly short lifespan. The focus should be on good design which will, by its very nature, be much photographed and shared on Instagram. The work of interior designer David Collins (1955-2013) is a case in point, as before his untimely death, he created numerous interiors which have remained as Instagrammable as ever; both The Blue Bar at the Berkeley (2002) and The Connaught Bar (2008) have survived, almost untouched, since their creation and are as popular as ever. More recently, Martin Brudnizki’s decadent redesign of London’s infamous Annabel’s Nightclub “embraces the spirit of English eccentricity”, creating a fantasy world for its members, without compromising on overall design integrity. In terms of twentieth century design, the maverick creations of Jean Royère (1902-1981) remain timeless and singular today, and were attention-grabbing without ever lapsing into kitsch.
With 800 million active users and 95 million photos and videos shared each day, Instagram is affecting our visual perception like no other platform. It’s impossible to quantify the value of a “like”, and social media coverage is no guarantee of business success. The portmanteau “Instagrammable” should merely be interpreted as photogenic, and it’s the role of a good designer to tell a client that there’s a difference between a space that looks good in photographs and a theme-park; when interior design becomes nothing more than a prop for a self-portrait, it stops being seen.