Anca I. Lasc | Pratt Institute (original) (raw)

Books by Anca I. Lasc

Revisiting the Past in Museums and at Historic Sites demonstrates that museums and historic space... more Revisiting the Past in Museums and at Historic Sites demonstrates that museums and historic spaces are increasingly becoming "backdrops" for all sorts of appropriations and interventions that throw new light upon the objects they comprise and the pasts they reference.

Rooted in new scholarship that expands established notions of art installations, museums, period rooms, and historic sites, the book brings together contributions from scholars from intersecting disciplines. Arguing that we are witnessing a paradigm shift concerning the place of historic spaces and museums in the contemporary imaginary, the volume shows that such institutions are merging traditional scholarly activities tied to historical representation and inquiry with novel modes of display and interpretation, drawing them closer to the world of entertainment and interactive consumption. Case studies analyze how a range of interventions impact historic spaces and conceptions of the past they generate. The book concludes that museums and historic sites are reinventing themselves in order to remain meaningful and to play a role in societies aspiring to be more inclusive and open to historical and cultural debate.

Revisiting the Past in Museums and at Historic Sites will be of interest to students and faculty who are engaged in the study of museums, art history, architectural and design history, social and cultural history, interior design, visual culture, and material culture.

The book addresses the broad cultural, historical, and theoretical implications of interiors beyo... more The book addresses the broad cultural, historical, and theoretical implications of interiors beyond their conventionally defined architectural boundaries. With provocative contributions from leading and emerging historians, theorists, and design practitioners, the book is rooted in new scholarship that expands traditional relationships between architecture and interiors and that reflects the latest theoretical developments in the fields of interior design history and practice.

Through an international range of case studies from the 1870s to the present day, this volume ana... more Through an international range of case studies from the 1870s to the present day, this volume analyses strategies of display in department stores and modern retail spaces. Established scholars and emerging researchers working within a range of disciplinary contexts and historiographical traditions shed light on what constitutes modern retail and the ways in which interior designers, architects, and artists have built or transformed their practice in response to the commercial context.

" Architectures of Display is an important and welcome addition to the scholarship of interiors, retailing, and consumption. The rather neglected topic of merchandising displays is examined through international examples ranging from Victorian and later model rooms to contemporary digital fashion retailing. The fascinating case studies in the volume, not only engage with particular historic moments in retail design, but as a volume emphasize the crucial importance of the visual when engaging with consumers. " Clive Edwards, Emeritus Professor of Design History, Loughborough University, UK

" Recounting the ways that show-window designers have piqued consumer desire, Architectures of Display reveals a major portal through which modernity entered everyday life. Covering more than a century of practice with detailed case studies, it suggests the breadth of approaches to retail presentations as well as their shared goal of creating visual narratives that shape our relationships with material objects. In doing so, Architectures of Display provides an historical perspective on our current era of unrelenting self-presentation. " Sandy Isenstadt, Professor of History of Modern Architecture, University of Delaware, USA

" In its interrogation of the architecture of display, and display as integral to architecture's cultural impact, this collection moves far beyond conventional studies of consumption. Its contributions are multiple and compelling: it situates the emergence of the display window and the department store within an expanded history of architecture's material effects; it argues that techniques and technologies of display have been at the core of artistic experimentation; and it shows that the arrangement of consumer goods is nothing if not political. " Charles Rice, School of Architecture, University of Technology Sydney, Australia

" Generously illustrated and historically adventurous, Architectures of Display is a scintillating exploration of how wealthy societies have been seduced by a world of commercial retailing. By concentrating on the dazzling and inventive theatrics of department stores this volume is an essential guide to the aesthetics of commodity culture. It is highly recommended to anyone wanting to understand our love affair with things. " Ben Highmore, Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Sussex, UK

The nineteenth century -the Era of the Interior -witnessed the steady displacement of art from th... more The nineteenth century -the Era of the Interior -witnessed the steady displacement of art from the ceilings, walls, and floors of aristocratic and religious interiors to the everyday spaces of bourgeois households, subject to their own enhanced ornamentation. Following the 1863 Salon des refuses, the French State began to channel mediocre painters into the decorative arts. England, too, launched an extensive reform of the decorative arts, resulting in more and more artists engaged in the production and design of complete interiors. America soon followed. Present art historical scholarship -still indebted to a modernist discourse that sees cultural progress to be synonymous with the removal of ornament from both utilitarian objects and architectural spaces -has not yet acknowledged the importance of the decorative arts in the myriad interior spaces of the 1800s. Nor has mainstream art history reckoned with the importance of the interior in nineteenth-century life and thought. Aimed at an interdisciplinary audience, including art and design historians, historians of the modern interior, interior designers, visual culture theorists, and scholars of nineteenth-century material culture, this collection of essays studies the modern interior in new ways. The volume addresses the double nature of the modern interior as both space and image, blurring the boundaries between arts and crafts, decoration and high art, two-dimensional and three-dimensional design, trompe-l'oeil effects and spatial practices. In so doing, it redefines the modern interior and its objects as essential components of modern art.

Designing the French Interior traces France's central role in the development of the modern domes... more Designing the French Interior traces France's central role in the development of the modern domestic interior, from the pre-revolutionary period to the 1970s, and addresses the importance of various media in representing and promoting French interior design to a wider audience. Contributors to this original volume identify and historicize the singularity of the modern French domestic interior as a generator of reproducible images, a site for display of both highly crafted and mass-produced objects, and the direct result of widely-circulated imagery in its own right. To this end, a variety of media and representational techniques are discussed side by side, including drawings, prints, pattern books, illustrated magazines, department store catalogues, photographs, guidebooks, and films. Structured into three parts and including chapters by leading scholars addressing a wide range of subjects, this book is intended to broaden understanding of French interiors, from historical, theoretical and practice-based perspectives, and provides an invaluable new understanding of the relationship between architecture, interior spaces, material cultures, mass media and modernity.

Articles by Anca I. Lasc

Journal of Design History 31, no. 1 (2018), Nov 8, 2018

This article argues that American window designers at the turn of the twentieth century not only ... more This article argues that American window designers at the turn of the twentieth century not only helped shops advertise their wares but also created flexible, unstable and mobile environments which acted upon people’s perceptions of the material world around them. As shoppers’ eyes turned from sturdy façades to themed displays of mass-produced goods, the ‘here’ and ‘now’ of the modern city were replaced with alternative times and spaces that added new ‘realities’ to the urban grid. The article further examines the emergence of window dressing as a profession and the windows’ relationship with the street as trimmers helped create a mobile modern metropolis.

Journal of the History of Collections 28, no. 1 (2016), Mar 2016

of the nineteenth century Anca I. Lasc This essay examines the collection of copies after Renaiss... more of the nineteenth century Anca I. Lasc This essay examines the collection of copies after Renaissance artworks amassed by Adolphe Thiers in the private office (cabinet) of his hôtel particulier throughout the nineteenth century. It studies the varied techniques of reproduction that Thiers employed to build and -after the Commune -rebuild his collection in order to understand the multiple meanings that these copies held for their owner. Unlike photograph albums of Italian masterpieces, widely available from the 1860s, small-scale reproductions of Italian Renaissance works of art in watercolour or marble filled Thiers' museum as a means of recording and bringing to mind his personal experiences as a traveller to the Italian peninsula and of restoring Renaissance originals -through their copies -to former glory. The reproductions purchased or commissioned by Thiers can thus be compared to what Siegfried Kracauer has termed 'memory images' -souvenirs of a past long-gone, mementos of a geographically-remote present and, at the same time, reminders of personal experiences.

Journal of Design History 26, no. 1 (2013), Feb 2013

This article calls for a re-definition of eclectic décor as applied to the private interiors of n... more This article calls for a re-definition of eclectic décor as applied to the private interiors of nineteenth-century France. Previously, scholars of the nineteenth century have separated two forms of advice literature, one dedicated to women as house decorators and the other dedicated to men as collectors. By bringing them together, this essay argues that these private interiors, rather than being eclectic, as they might appear to an untrained eye, were, in fact, carefully orchestrated decorative ensembles guided by the rules of historic revivalism and themed décor, which attempted to create a collection of different times and places through interior decoration. The first part of this essay outlines the changes in the art market and the perception of the past in France in the first half of the nineteenth century, while the second part introduces collecting and interior decorating manuals from the second half of the century, written by both men and women alike. The essay concludes with an examination of the work of the furniture designer (architecte d'ameublement) Édouard Bajot (1853-1900s), in order to understand how the theoretical tenets put forth in writing by collecting and decorating advisors were given visual form.

Interiors: Design, Architecture and Culture 2, no. 3 (2011), Jan 1, 2011

Book Chapters by Anca I. Lasc

Design and Agency: Critical Perspectives on Identities, Histories, and Practices, edited by John Potvin and Marie-Ève Marchand (Bloomsbury 2020)

FLOW: Interior, Landscape and Architecture in the Era of Liquid Modernity, edited by Penny Sparke, Pat Brown, Patricia Lara-Betancourt, Gini Lee and Mark Taylor (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018)

Expanding Nationalisms at World Fairs: Identity, Diversity and Exchange, 1851-1915, edited by David Raizman and Ethan Robey (Routledge 2018), 2018

Visualizing the Nineteenth-Century Home: Modern Art and the Decorative Impulse, edited by Anca I. Lasc, 2016

Textile Technology and Design: From Interior Space to Outer Space, edited by Deborah Schneiderman and Alexa Griffith Winton, Jan 28, 2016

Designing the French Interior: The Modern Home and Mass Media, edited by Anca I. Lasc, Georgina Downey, and Mark Taylor, Oct 2015