To the Window… To the Wall: Why Modern Interior Design Sucks Today

Okay, I admit that the title of this article makes me sound like an old man shaking his fist at a cloud (while listening to Lil Jon), but hear me out.

Modern interior design, which I'll appropriately refer to as MID, is defined by qualities like open floor plans, monochromatic color schemes, overemphasis on raw materials, over-reliance on straight lines, and a "form as a consequence of function" approach to furniture.

In this article, I will discuss my suspicions about the reasoning behind each aforementioned quality as well as my thoughts about the cultural ramifications or perversions of each.

Open Floor Plans

I suspect this design has perpetuated into the norms of house renovations and contemporary style because it provides the illusion that the space we occupy is bigger than it really is. It also seems to be marketed as providing a "seamless" flow between different rooms of the house, but really, it has eliminated the segmentation of having different rooms altogether. As a result, I can no longer leave the kitchen and walk into the living room or leave the foyer and walk into the office. Now, there exists the room and which part of the room I happen to be in. Gone are the days of having a kitchen; I am now in the kitchen part of the room. Maybe later, I'll meander to the living part of the room.

The lack of separation not only removes the ability to have different aesthetics in different rooms but has also made compartmentalization more difficult. Where am I? What should I be focused on? I'm in my office (i.e., the office part of the room) but I can see the dishes that still need to be cleaned; I can see the novel I'm itching to finish on the coffee table in the living (part of the) room; I can see the laundry basket on the couch with towels waiting to be folded.

In a sense, open floor plans are a physical representation of ADD in the form of architecture. There's so much going around, and I'm supposed to be focused but I can't not recognize what's happening over there… and there… and there. Having separate rooms isn't outdated or unsophisticated; it's a way of acknowledging that the space around us is supposed to define the activity, and that a space is supposed to serve a purpose, not a part of a purpose.

Monochromatic Color Schemes

Notice the end table at the curb of your neighbor's driveway. Walk down the appliance aisle at Lowes. Take a peek at a furniture website. What you'll find is an assortment of contemporary products with the color theory of The Giver. 

Companies may profess a desire to maintain simplicity, prioritize minimalism, or uphold a "sophisticated" brand image, but I remain skeptical. With fewer (but increasingly more neutral) color variations, companies reduce the risk of having overstock in an unpopular color. Offering only one color (and a simple one at that) reduces manufacturing costs and makes their products seem timeless, which may help sell older products under the guise of modernity. (All the better when using stainless steel removes the need to even choose a color.)

However, while stainless steel appliances reign supreme, nostalgia for the colorful world of the '50s "petal pink" General Electric gas ranges and 60's "two-tone Tahitian green" Frigidaire fridges seems to increase. I don't think this sentiment is a fad either; people long for the playful and the whimsical. Whether in museum-grade Tiffany lamps or your grandma's wallpaper, there's something charming about seeing color surround you, like standing in a botanical garden or laying submerged in a ball pit.

As modern interior design becomes increasingly more brutalist, monolithic, and insipid, we also stumble upon perversions in color. Take greige—the bastard child of grey and beige. This color, which now surrounds the foyer of the newly renovated real estate project down your street, looks like how it sounds—uninspiring at best and repulsive at worst. It's a color that was designed to "look good" next to any other color, which is to say that it doesn't look particularly great next to any color. It just sits there in its weird puberty stage unsure of its own identity and why it has no friends.

Ultimately, the lack of color has led to a lack of character and personality, which was previously bountiful in interior decor, from detailed rugs and window curtains to carpets and tapestries. Even worse, we now encounter more products in their raw material form, which leads me to my next point.