Theorising Interior Architecture and Design: Identity, Practices, Education, and Beyond

Theorising Interior Architecture and Design. Identity, Practices, Education, and Beyond looks at interior architecture and design from a contemporary and international perspective. This book takes theory building to be one of the most important activities for a discipline. It explores the interior discipline’s theoretical dimension and its pedagogical, professional, and creative practices in different settings across the globe.

Organised in four thematic sections and an epilogue, 20 chapters discuss vital aspects of contemporary interior architecture and design. How has the interior discipline, which for decades has been classified as ‘emerging’ or ‘relatively young’, over the past decades ‘come of age’ academically, in practice, and in theory? Why is the identity of interiors a complex issue, and how does this relate to theoretical concepts like surface, interior/exterior, or time? How can we think about the different roles of creative and professional practice – or about interior education and the way it reflects and shapes interior identities? And what lies beyond supposed disciplinary boundaries?

Theorising Interior Architecture and Design brings together 28 leading, established, and emerging interior educators, researchers, theorists, and professionals who connect 17 countries on four continents. Detailed studies of culturally specific interior histories, regional educational perspectives, and national professional frameworks are complemented by authoritative theoretical discussions. This book’s scrutinising discourse provides a compelling theorisation of interiors as a multi-lingual, culturally situated discipline. It is an essential reading for everyone concerned with interiors – practising, studying, or working in educational and professional institutions.

Carola Ebert is Professor of Interior Design, History and Theory of Architecture and Design at Berlin International University of Applied Science (BI), Germany. At BI, she has served as Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Design, and Head of the interior MA programmes. Her current research focuses on interior-specific approaches to history, theory and reuse, on research-based education, on interior pedagogy, and the studio-history/theory nexus. Recent publications include “Dis/Assembled. Unmaking Interiors as an Adaptive Reuse Approach to Disciplinary Identity” (2024), “Interior Reuse. Theory, Pedagogy and Practice of Keeping It All Together” (2025), and co-authored contributions to this volume and The Cambridge Handbook of Undergraduate Research (2022).