Privacy is the luxury of the 21st century. The apartment is increasingly opening up to the outside world, becoming both a stage and a place of work. And as the walls of the cocoon get thinner and the boundaries blur, the once separate formal canons of private and public aesthetics are merging too.
Man is a nomad by nature. Actually. For thousands of years, his nesting instinct was confined to caves and what we today would call “temporary architecture” – more or less provisional shelters. You stepped in or out, inside was inside and outside was outside. Window holes were barricaded up and the room with a view is a romantic invention. The dwelling as the focal point of life, with individual aesthetics and a private character, is not just a phenomenon of the modern age: it is little short of avantgarde. Well into the 20th century, having a room of one’s own was the exception rather than the rule.
18. May 2009
Categories: Design concepts, Trends
Tags: cocooning, furniture design, home office, homing, Internet, laptops, mobile phones, place of work, second home, Skype, statistics, temporary architecture, webcams, work from home, working world
