Experiencing the Everyday: An Introduction

摘要

The designed interior is most often modeled and photographed emptied of signs of everyday life, and distanced from lived experiences, as if it were waiting for human habitation. Henri Lefebvre, pre-eminent scholar of the everyday, presents a more humanistic view that embraces the humble and prosaic against elitism and the concept of the "superman." Lefebvre also rejects the nihilistic view prevalent in philosophy leading to, and during the two World Wars, by focusing his attention productively on consumption, mass culture, and urban space. He conceptualizes the experience of the everyday as not only dialectically oppositional, complex, and highly regulated, but also simple and celebratory, offering the opportunity for subversion and creativity (Lefebvre 1997). The collection of articles in this special issue of Interiors has been informed by Lefebvre's humanism, reflecting a view from the interior that resides in the deeply habituated, repetitious, and familiar; things readily overlooked and easily maligned that contribute fundamentally to our sense of self.