En kommercielt drevet designhistorie: Danske boligmagasiners historiekonstruktion i det 21. århundrede

The objective of the dissertation is to investigate interior design magazines as a phenomenon within Danish design culture. The choice of subject is motivated by the magazine’s obvious influence on the design culture meanwhile the foundation of the content and thereby the character of the influence is not transparent. From a position of cultural authority, the magazines present latest trends on interiors and contribute to a framing of design culture, of what is cool and what is not. Meanwhile, the interior design magazines are a business and are affecting businesses, which set the grounds for the content of the magazines and for what design objects are pointed out as culturally attractive. Since the millennium, the content of the Danish interior design magazines has been oriented towards design history and objects from the past. The understanding of design history presented in these magazines is particular, as it is a commercially driven construction. On these grounds, my research question is twofold:

What characterizes the role of Danish interior design magazines in the 21st century, and how is the design historical dimension thematized within these media?

I set out in chapter 1 by introducing the complexity of the magazine’s role within Danish design culture. The stakeholders of interior design magazines are many, and with cultural as well as commercial interests in the magazine and mainly; the content. The history of design is introduced as a theme of interest with popular culture that has spread to new areas and media in the new millennium, which has manifested in the magazines. The magazines represent the design culture and trends of design culture, but according to the prominent design historian Kjetil Fallan, the magazines to not merely represent the design culture, they also contribute to constructing it (Fallan, 2012, p. 49). Interior design magazines not only represent a cultural orientation towards design history, they take part in constructing this orientation and they take part in construction an idea of that design history is within popular culture.

In chapter 2 literature reviews are presented in three parts. The magazines are investigated in the context of design culture within the perspective of their role within design culture. Further, it is the construction of an idea of design history that is subject for the investigation. The project is anchored within the discipline of Design culture, but with strong perspectives towards the discipline of Design history. I present a review of the literature within these two disciplines that my dissertation builds upon. In the second part, a literature review of the literature concerning specifically interior design magazines is introduced. Interior design magazines have only been subject of little research attention, but the attention given has come from several different and not related disciplines. I gather literature across disciplines to present an adequate review on this interdisciplinary subject. Finally, an overview on the most central literature on magazines in general is presented. Altogether, the theoretical foundation of the dissertation is presented in there three literature reviews.

The first part of the dissertation frames the interior design magazine as a design cultural phenomenon, and is unfolded in the following three chapters, 3, 4, and 5.

Chapter 3 accounts for the historical development of the earliest international magazines, later international interior design magazines, and also specifically the development of the Danish interior design magazines. This historical account of different cultural roles of the magazine and the interior design magazine sets the grounds for understanding the role of interior design magazines in the 21st century.

The design cultural role of interior design magazines is then unfolded in a comprehensive network analysis in chapter 4. Here I account for the diverse range of cultural and commercial stakeholders and their specific interests in the interior design magazine. Mainly is two sets of interests: 1) commercial interests of advertisers and others who may gain from exposure among the culturally attractive design objects, and 2) readers interests in culturally generated inspiration based upon aesthetics and fashion of interiors.

Chapter 4 closes the first part of the dissertation with an examination of the interior design magazine as media focusing on the visual and textual communication, the structure and the genres of the content.

The second part of the dissertation accounts for an empirical investigation of the communication within the interior design magazines, focusing on the main orientation within the 21st century: a construction of design history. This account is unfolded in chapter 6, 7, and 8.

In chapter 6 the investigation design is presented. The empirical investigation is carried out as a combination of qualitative and quantitative elements. Multimodal socio semiotic analysis as presented by Günther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen (2006) and quantitative content analysis as presented by Mikkel Fugl Eskjær og Rasmus Helles (2015) pose the methodological foundation. Combining qualitative and quantitative research methods allows me to comprehend the complexity of the magazines communication and to identify tendencies across the publications of a year of the magazines Bo bedre, RUM and Boligliv. The investigation is carried out as a three-step investigation; 1) a qualitative identification of history markers: visual representations of objects from the past and linguistics articulations that implies a historical reference; 2) a quantitative count of these history markers and a statistical analysis hereof; as well as 3) a qualitative investigation of the statistical results.

In chapter 7 I present the result of the quantitative content analysis of interior design magazines construction of design history. The most prominent construction of history is generated jointly from editorial and commercial content. This idea of history is characterized by design objects designed in the 1950-60ies that are newly produced and presented in an aestheticized interior. It is a construction of history that supports commercial interests by constructing an idea of authentic history being design objects that are designed in the past and for sale in the 21st century. Add to that an idea of design history that considers objects that has never before been produced as historical objects to be historically authentic and equally cultural attractive. It is the time of design that constitutes the historical dimension more than an actual historical existence. Another construction of history thematizes anonymous materially old objects. This construction is solely editorially and visually generated. Within this construction, what constitutes history is the material age of the objects.

Chapter 8 elaborates on the results in a qualitative manner investigating the different ways of generating a meaning potential of historical character. This elaboration sets out from the statistical analysis to qualitatively explore the further potential of the material beyond statistics. Here I have conceptualized a matrix of how historical meaning potential is generated and what factors that generates specific kinds of historical meaning potential. Within this matrix is three categories of historical objects; canonized objects, commercially canonized objects and anonymous objects. These three categories of objects generate a different historical meaning potential depending on their material status being new or materially old and, on their staging as either aesthetic or home-like. Based on multimodal socio semiotic analytical approaches, I unfold the different processes of historization. The matrix may serve for future analysis of history construction within interior design magazines or other advertisements. Or it may serve to qualify advertisers attributing historical meaning to their products within commercial advertising.

A discussion of the magazines role and construction of history is carried out in chapter 9. Within a design historiographic perspective, I discuss the ways of construction history in the magazines and within Design History respectively. Doing so, I identify the history construction of the magazines to be promoting the designer as an artist and canonizing specific designers and objects. Within a design historiographical perspective, construction design history in this way produces an outdated understanding of design history. Within a design cultural perspective, I discuss the historical, cultural and commercial circumstances influencing on the massive orientation towards design history in Danish culture in general and in the magazines specifically. Themes comprises of positive associations to the historical period promoted, a design historical period of cultural, financial and technical development producing numerous new designs, a contemporary commercial advantage of reproducing historical designs instead of developing news, historically and geographically closeness in a time of globalization, and a perspective of sustainability in consuming material old or long-lasting design objects.

The dissertation is concluded with a synthesis of insights in chapter 10.