Urban Interiors: A Retroactive Investigation

In recent years, the sudden success of “tactical” modes of urbanism has begun to challenge the traditional parameters of public space design by requiring new tools and methodologies of “place-making” within cities. In this regard, interior architecture and design could provide a fundamental perspective to address this new issue if they were not constantly in need of theoretical framing to legitimize their interest in the field. In many cases, in fact, the conjunction between the terms “urban” and “interior” is still seen as a provocation, and the history of the different attempts through which interior disciplines have developed a design approach about the city, although now consolidated, is little known in its complexity. Therefore, this paper offers a critical and historical reading of the concept of “urban interiors,” both from a theoretical and an operative point of view, in order to trace the evolution of this line of investigation and envision its possible future developments. In doing so, it first analyses the different concepts of “interior urbanism” and “urban interiority” and describes the emergence and the evolution of the urban interior design approach. Then, it points out some shared features that characterize contemporary practices of “interior-making” within urban situations to eventually focus on the progressive disciplinary convergence with urban planning and design. The objective is to lay the foundation of a unified theoretical framework that could highlight the methodological contribution of interior disciplines to the urban construction.