Indoor Architecture

Architects are often heard scoffing at interior decorators. They feel that their own diligent study of ornament and design is a better basis for indoor work than the fancies of a chintzy enthusiast. In- teresting therefore is the exhibition, now at Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum, of modernist interiors conceived by seven architects, a landscape architect and a ceramic worker.

Only for the most feminine of ladies is the velvet-hung bedroom by John Well-born Root of Chicago. Peach-rose, grey and silver are the dominant shades. A mirror, framed with willowy figures in black and white etched glass, is lighted indirectly from behind. Visitors are captivated by the semicircular pewter dressing table and swivel chair for the convenient or pensive rotation of the owner.

Fastidious, she may well have stepped from the bath and dressing room by Ely Jacques Kahn of Manhattan. There the walls are glass, the tub is black, the finish is silvery.

A yellowish nursery by Eugene Schoen of Manhattan has walls whereon tots may scribble, housemaids erase.

Ralph T. Walker of Manhattan has designed a brown, congenial, masculine study for a country house. Two octagonal electric lanterns are hung by rods which pass through slots in the ceiling. They may be raised for general illumination, lowered for reading, moved laterally to any desired position.

The occupant of the business office by Raymond Mathewson Hood of Manhattan may look out on sooty roofs, but he will see them through a huge, tinted window with dim floral designs in the glass. The staunch desk is metallic, L-shaped, with a built-in clock.

Other contributors are Joseph Urban and Armistead Fitzhugh (landscape architect) of Manhattan, Eliel Saarinen of Detroit, Leon V. Solon (ceramics) of Tenafly, N. J. & Manhattan.

Modernist furniture and decor is replete with berserk zigzagging, nightmare shapes and gaudiness. These architects, however, with the taste bred of academic training, create in a dulcet and tempered mood. The results are fresh without being freakish. But, due to the cost of materials and the scarcity of fine modernist designers, they are also expensive.