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The 37 Most Important Interior Design Moments From the Past 100 Years

From Jackie Kennedy’s TV tour of the White House and the midcentury sets of Mad Men to Wes Anderson’s singular style and Snøhetta’s nature-first rooms
a woman in a bright red room with floral patterns
Diana Vreeland, in her red Billy Baldwin–designed "garden in hell" living room, wearing a red lounging ensemble, 1979.Photo: Photo by Horst P. Horst/Conde Nast via Getty Images

A lot has happened in the past hundred years. From the Bauhaus to the White House, we’ve seen two World Wars, the Great Depression, and the first African American president. Design doesn’t exist in a vacuum, of course; interiors are always shaped by the cultural and social contexts of their time. At its best, great design can influence the world around it, too. And as interiors evolve, so can our traditions, well-being, and even humanity, as is evident in the dozens of touchstone moments below.

1919

A typical Bauhaus interior.

Photo: Atelier Jacobi/ullstein bild via Getty Images

German architect Walter Gropius founds the Bauhaus, a radical new school that combines architecture, sculpture, painting, and various crafts in its curriculum. The result is an entirely modern approach to design, based on the belief that it can be useful, beautiful, and mass-produced.

Mid 1920s

Elsie de Wolfe’s career is in full swing. Known as “the first interior designer” (though she may have given herself that title), de Wolfe popularizes animal-print carpets and upholstery—faux, if necessary—and mirrored surfaces, motifs that signify sophistication and worldliness to this day.

1920

Architectural Digest publishes its first issue. The magazine was initially focused exclusively on California, where innovative modernist houses were springing up next to old-world-style cottages and châteaus.

1925

The Exposition International des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, held in Paris, ushers in the era of Art Deco. The glamorous, sinewy style is soon embraced in New York and Hollywood. The Great Gatsby is published the same year.

1933

A sitting room in the Maine home of interior designer Sister Parish.

Photo: Horst P. Horst/Conde Nast via Getty Images

Billing herself as a budget decorator to the upper crust, Sister Parish opens her office. Her informal style, which comes to be known as American Country, favors chintz and overstuffed armchairs, and still endures today.

1937

Jean-Michel Frank decorates the living room in Nelson Rockefeller’s Fifth Avenue town house, mashing up his own furniture designs with Louis XV–style French furnishings and paintings by Matisse. The colorful, eclectic, and avant-garde space was a spectacular departure for the designer, and was also his final project.

1946

American architect and furniture designer Florence Knoll Bassett, 1961.

Photo: Ray Fisher/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images/Getty Images

Architect, interior and furniture designer, and entrepreneur Florence Knoll Bassett becomes a full business partner in Knoll Associates, and revolutionizes office design with open-plan layouts and clean-lined furnishings built for how humans actually work.

1946

A sitting room at The Greenbrier resort.

Photo: Ball and Albanese / Alamy Stock Photo

Renowned decorator Dorothy Draper overhauls The Greenbrier resort, which served as an infirmary for soldiers during World War II. She remains the resort’s decorator into the 1960s, when her protégé, Carleton Varney, takes over. Known for vibrant colors and bold prints, Draper is a marketing and publicity whiz, who sets the blueprint for running a successful design firm.

1949

The interior of Philip Johnson's Glass House, New Canaan, Connecticut.

Photo: Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty Images

To escape Nazi Germany, a wave of European modernists, including Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, had already emigrated to the United States; their work influences a generation of upcoming American architects like Philip Johnson, whose iconic Glass House is built in 1949.

1950

Charles Eames's iconic chair.

Photo: David Cooper/Toronto Star via Getty Images

Postwar technology has made materials like aluminum, steel, bonded wood, fiberglass, and plastics widely available, enabling designers to create remarkable new products, like Charles and Ray Eames’s molded fiberglass dining chairs, which remain in demand today.

1951

Henry Francis du Pont transforms his 175-room mansion in Delaware into the Winterthur Museum. The 90,000 objects and period-decorated rooms—from the 17th to the 20th centuries—celebrate American arts and crafts, elevating their place in the global history of design.

1956

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum in New York features corkscrew-like interior circulation and galleries, including a spiraling ramp and no stairs. The space forever changes how museumgoers experience cultural spaces.

1957

Billy Baldwin had already built a career on swapping out silk and taffeta for more durable, comfortable fabrics when fashion editor (and soon-to-be Vogue editor in chief) Diana Vreeland called on him to make her Park Avenue living room “look like a garden, but a garden in hell.” The room’s mirrored walls, crystal sconces, and decorative seashells make a distinct impact, but it’s the scarlet floral chintz that covers the room—walls, curtains, furniture—that sends it over the top.

1957

Architect Paul R. Williams.

Photo: Alamy Stock Photo

Paul R. Williams becomes the first African American to be inducted into the American Institute of Architects’ College of Fellows. Williams was well-known for his brand of California glamour and creating homes for Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and Lon Chaney.

1958

The drawing room at Haseley Court, the home of Nancy Lancaster in Oxfordshire, England.

Photo: Horst P. Horst/Conde Nast via Getty Images

American Nancy Lancaster, who expatriated to England and became a partner in Colefax and Fowler, inspires color enthusiasts everywhere with her “buttah yellah” (she never lost her Virginia accent) living room, the pinnacle of the English-country look she helped create. Vibrant walls, loads of chintz, and a casual mix of cozy furnishings define the look.

1962

Jackie Kennedy gives a tour of the White House that was broadcast on CBS on February 14, 1962. 

Photo: CBS via Getty Images

Unveiling a much publicized restoration of the White House, Jackie Kennedy’s televised tour of the landmark captivates the nation. The $2 million overhaul features spaces blinged out by Frenchman Stéphane Boudin and Sister Parish, who had previously decorated the Kennedy’s Georgetown home.

1975

Bucking trends, Michael Taylor brings an earthy elegance and mix of high-low decor to the Beyer residence in Malibu, California, which was designed by architect John Lautner. The groundbreaking project is the advent of California cool—and is still relevant today.

1976

Ikea debuts the Poäng chair, designed by Noboru Nakamura. The bentwood chair is a harbinger of the company’s future success (30 million pieces have sold to date)—and our collective obsession with Scandinavian design.

1977

Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell open Studio 54 in a former theater. Though the nightclub closed just three years later, its legendary parties and mirrored- and neon-bedecked interiors leave an indelible impression.

1981

An Ettore Sottsass Carlton bookcase, 1981.

Photo: Monica Schipper/WireImage

Ettore Sottsass founds the Memphis Group. Their brightly colored, oddly shaped, and generally outrageous objects and furnishings defy convention—and announce that the ‘80s have arrived.

1984

Andrée Putman’s interiors for the Morgans Hotel show a disciplined, monochromatic, and totally ‘80s approach to hospitality. The project marks the beginning of the boutique-hotel era.

1984

Meanwhile, star decorator Mario Buatta earns the nickname “Prince of Chintz” and French country and shabby chic are trending upward, in another bifurcated decade of design styles.

1992

The Americans With Disabilities Act becomes law, identifying and requiring standards of accessibility for public buildings.

1992

The famous Aeron office chair.

Photo: Ian Firth / Alamy Stock Photo

Herman Miller’s Aeron chair redefines task seating, and ergonomics becomes a driving force of workplace design. Manufacturers like Humanscale and Steelcase also begin to focus on design for the digital age.

1993

Imagining a world where buildings and construction have less impact on the environment and better health outcomes for inhabitants, the U.S. Green Building Council is launched; its LEED program certifies green buildings and interiors.

1994

HGTV hits cable television; a generation of armchair realtors and DIY designers is born.

1995

Online auction site eBay launches, making it easier than ever to buy vintage finds. Since anyone can now research market values of antiques with a click of a button, prices equalize nationwide.

1998

A kettle designed by Michael Graves, 1985.

Photo: Indianapolis Museum of Art /Getty Images

Postmodern master Michael Graves teams up with Target on a line of homewares, ushering in a new era of design for the masses—and the collaboration between big-box stores and big-name designers.

Late 1990s

With a spirit of tranquility in an increasingly digital and frenzied world, Axel Vervoordt’s peaceful, minimal interiors conjure respect for the past and presence in the now. Dubbed the Belgian Interior, it becomes the most copied look of the next two decades.

2001

A still from Wes Anderson's 2001 film *The Royal Tenenbaums*.

Photo: AF archive / Alamy Stock Photo

Filmmaker Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums reminds us that the charm of the ancestral home—however quirky—never goes out of style, just like Scalamandre’s zebra wallpaper.

2002

Architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart publish Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, an environmental manifesto for the circular economy. The green zeitgeist washes over the design community, ahead of the general public.

2002

Kelly Wearstler packs a punch with her design work for the Viceroy Santa Monica hotel, begetting a Hollywood Regency revival just as social media and blogging also begin to generate design stars.

2007

Don Draper (Jon Hamm) on the set of Mad Men.

Photo: PictureLux / The Hollywood Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

As Don Draper’s good looks take America by storm, so do the historically accurate sets of Mad Men. The midcentury modern craze sends prices for originals soaring.

2008

When the recession hits, the Tiny House movement—which embraces dwellings of less than 400 square feet—gets a foothold, in part as a backlash against conspicuous consumerism.

2011

Addressing a lack of notoriety among African Americans in the field, interior designer Kimberly Ward, who established her business working for members of the NFL, founds the Black Interior Designers Network and Conference. Though Ward died in 2017, the need for diversity and inclusion remains. Organizations like the Black Artists and Designs Guild continue to raise awareness.

2018

Starchitect Bjarke Ingels joins WeWork, confirming that the way everyone from solopreneurs to Fortune 500 companies thinks about productivity, travel, and even childcare has radically changed for good.

2019

Snøhetta’s Under restaurant.

Photo: Ivar Kvaal / Courtesy of Snøhetta
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Today, designers increasingly study how we live, work, and play in order to maximize our well-being. Take Snøhetta’s Under, for example, a submerged restaurant in Norway with underwater views. The space underscores not only our fascination with and inherent connection to nature, but also the increasing need to respect and revere it.