Style and Lifestyle in the Machine Age: The Modernist Period Rooms of 'The Architect and the Industrial Arts'

摘要

In its phenomenally popular 1929 exhibition "The Architect and the Industrial Arts," the Metropolitan Museum of Art used the period room type of display to showcase modern designs for the home and workplace. This article traces a three-part genealogy of the Metropolitan s installation design, which derived from displays of modern furnishings in New York department stores, modernist movie sets, and the American Wing period rooms at the museum itself. The article argues that despite the modern style of the designs on display, the exhibition, through its installation architecture, actually promoted a conservative, backward-looking lifestyle governed by establishment taste and traditional gender identities.