The actual profession of
interior designer is credited to a woman named
Dorothy Draper, who was commissioned to decorate
all thirty-seven floors of the Hampshire House
hotel in 1937 Manhattan. Even though renowned
architect Frank Lloyd Wright called her an
"inferior desecrator," Ms. Draper had decorated
scores of offices, restaurants, hospitals, and
even a car for Packard (in 1952) and an airplane
interior for Convair (the 880) before she died in
1969.
Ms. Draper also left a
legacy through a number of books, as well,
including a string of books on entertaining
etiquette, some of which have recently been
reprinted to help modern socialites entertain
guests and be the life of their parties. In a way,
Dorothy Draper was the Martha Stewart of her day,
offering tips on a wide variety of issues to her
eager readers.
Although Dorothy Draper is no longer a household
name, she had an enormous effect on American
interior design ideas in her day, and though she
had her detractors (like Frank Lloyd Wright and
others), there's no denying that she was the one
who made the profession of interior designer
possible for all those who came after her.
Much of Ms. Draper's work
hasn't survived to the current day, but you can
still see some of Ms. Draper’s work in various
places around the country. For instance, there are
still Dorothy Draper chandeliers hanging in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. For a
less prosaic look into Ms. Draper’s influence,
just look for the blue-and-orange facades of the
many Howard Johnson restaurants that still dot the
countryside from coast to coast. Their color
scheme was first suggested by Dorothy Draper.
The science of interior design has come a long way
over the past seventy years. Today, it's a
multimillion dollar industry, and incorporates
aspects of environmental psychology, and
architecture, as well as product and furniture
design to create spaces that work well and are
esthetically pleasing to their owners.
See
Dorothy Draper's Interior Design Ideas
Copyright © 2006 Jeanette
J. Fisher
America's "Dream Home" Maker
Jeanette Fisher, author
of best-selling real estate investing and interior
design books, has researched the effects of the
environment on emotions for over 15 years. She is
the author of over ten books, including university
textbooks, and encyclopedia articles on color
psychology. For more information on interior
design psychology, free ebooks and newsletters,
please visit
Design Psychology
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long as the bio remains intact with a live link to
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