Introduction

Introduction to the book 'Biography, Identity and the Modern Interior' which was co-edited by Anne Massey and Penny Sparke.

Historians and theorists working within a range of disciplinary contexts and historiographical traditions are turning to biography as a means of exploring and accounting for social, cultural and material change - and this volume reflects that turn, representing the fields of architectural and design history, social history, literary history, creative writing and design practice. Topics include masters and servants in eighteenth-century English kitchens; the lost interiors of Oscar Wilde's 'house Beautiful'; Elsa Schiaparelli's Surrealist spaces; Jean Genet, outlaws, and the interiors of marginality; and the architect Lina Bo Bardi's 'Glass House', São Paulo, Brazil.