PRESENTING
SURFACE
DOME OF THE ROCK, Andrew Shiva
Dear EDGEcondition, I decorate. You decorate. We decorate*. The improvements made to space are often replete with the presentation of any number of new surfaces. Newly finished walls, flooring and ceilings complete a rendition of space that come with new planes, a covering that reflects a new look. Like a smoothly plastered wall new surfaces can obscure a myriad of contested issues. The presentation of identity through surface proposes a series of complex (edge) conditions: what is the embellished surface communicating to its occupant and why? In all of the University courses I have worked in, examined and validated, the analysis and construction of spaces, presented in a variety of ways, is afforded paramount impor tance. Their critical analysis, rigor and creative communication are subject
to testing against agreed national standards, a process that measures the approved outcomes of learning. Spatial ideas, types and projects are benchmarked and filtered through tightly worded and heavily formatted or thodoxies. To embellish space, through its ornamentation, is rarely, if at all, discussed. Of more concern is that decoration is not recognized as a means of learning about space. This absence of the presentation of surface masks a deeper dilemma. Play, folly, whimsy chronicle the components of decoration. They are fundamental elements that embody the rudiments of ornamentation and comprise of narrative, stor y-telling and the experimentation with and creation of distinct spatial identities. These essential components of the fabric of the interior contain the contested subject of taste, and the complexities of trend, fashion and
exquisiteness. Yet, I decorate. You decorate. We decorate*. We need to represent surface. I want students to understand what it means to decorate. The intellectual understanding of decoration does not yet exist in any course, module or format in an educational institution. Nobody is learning about the application, theor y and histor y of decoration and this has to change.
* A 2011 repor t by the office of fair trading concluded that the home improvement market was wor th 27 billion pounds annually. from Graeme Brooker Head of depar tment Fashion + interiors, Middlesex University (Seat 24 carriage C London to Brighton) g.brooker@mdx.ac.uk @autopilotgraeme
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