Podcast Summary: New Books Network

Episode: Graeme Brooker, "The Story of the Interior: How We Have Shaped Rooms and How They Shape Us"

Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Professor Graeme Brooker
Date: January 10, 2026

Main Theme

This episode centers on Professor Graeme Brooker’s book, "The Story of the Interior: How We Have Shaped Rooms and How They Shape Us" (Thames & Hudson, 2025). Brooker, an interior design professor and Head of the Interior Design Program at the Royal College of Art, explores how interiors impact and reflect on our lives, blending global examples, historical references, and new perspectives on the function and meaning of rooms. The conversation moves through the book’s structure, methodology, and major themes, using specific rooms (kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms, libraries), anecdotes, and case studies to illustrate how interiors evolve and affect our everyday experience.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Genesis and Purpose of the Book

• Dissatisfaction with Existing Literature: Brooker felt that previous books on the history of interiors lacked nuance and didn’t reflect the diversity and complexity of the subject.

  “I felt that they did the subject a disservice. They didn't really talk about the nuances or the distinctiveness of the subject.” (03:21)

• The Everyday Relevance of Interiors: We spend 90–98% of our lives indoors, making it essential to understand these environments.

  “Between 90 to 98% of our lives are spent in indoor environments... we really need to know about this space.” (03:58)

2. Approach and Organization

• Not Chronological: Unlike standard histories, Brooker organizes the book around the room as a concept and explores themes (enclosure, passages, object, atmosphere, technologies), not by era.

  “The room was the key for me... it was also to talk about the private interior and the public interior.” (09:56)
  “Chronology... is very problematic in relation to the interior...” (08:30)

• Transcending Time: Juxtaposition is a deliberate strategy: a Roman piece of furniture might sit next to a modern art gallery.

  “I could have, you know, a 19th century palazzo interior against a 21st century art gallery... it allows me to transcend the idea of straightforward chronologies...” (11:43)

3. Selection Process and Visual Storytelling

• Massive Editing: The project spanned a decade and shrank from 220,000 words to its final form.

  “It's been a huge process of editing down and choice.” (12:36)

• Survival of the Fittest: Only images or examples that most powerfully captured a theme survived:

  “It was kind of survival of the fittest, really, throughout the edit.” (13:05)

4. Exploring Thematic Sections: Examples & Challenges

• Difficult to Visualize Concepts: Themes like atmosphere and technologies were hardest to illustrate.
  • Atmosphere: Examples include Olafur Eliasson's giant sun installation at Tate Modern and Bompas & Parr’s Gin and Tonic Fog.

    “The idea that you walk into a room and it's full of a gin and tonic fog... to me, is a great example...” (15:14)

  • Technologies: Documenting plumbing was harder than, say, TVs or microwaves.

    “It's quite hard to find great examples of where people have documented their innovation in plumbing.” (15:48)

5. Deep Dives: Key Rooms

• Kitchens:
  • Originally hidden/service spaces; now often theatrical, social, and open-plan.
  • Gender, technology, and labor politics entwined in the kitchen’s design.

    “It's a complex space around labour, gender and politics, I would argue as well.” (19:23)
    “The whole idea of the kitchen becoming a kind of piece of theater is much more to do with open plan living...” (20:57)

• Bedrooms:
  • Increase in privacy over time; once public, communal, now highly private.

    “Beds also mirrored this kind of attempt to, you know, somehow make privacy. So the four poster bed was an attempt to almost make a room within the room.” (23:24)

• Bathrooms:
  • Vary cross-culturally; associated with vulnerability and privacy.

    “It's not often in any space that you are either naked or semi clothed. And therefore this is a room which kind of projects some form of vulnerability.” (26:09)

  • Filmic references (Psycho, The Shining) highlight bathrooms’ connection to exposure and fear.

    “One reason that [the bathroom] is used so often in filmic representations of vulnerability... is why the bathroom was used.” (27:07)

  • Monica Bonvicini’s mirrored public toilet as an art installation plays with private/public boundaries.
• Libraries & Book Spaces:
  • Examples include a Dominican church–converted bookshop in Maastricht, La Bruste’s reading room in Paris, a micro library in Indonesia, and Livraria Lello in Porto.

    “Very beautiful project which essentially is organized around what I can only describe as a huge kind of bookcase... slides into the middle of the church.” (41:06)

6. Repurposing and Reuse: Past, Present, & Future

• Reuse as a Core Principle: Brooker champions the transformation and repurposing of existing buildings, both for sustainability and rich storytelling.

  “We are constantly working with the existing world... innovation there is really, really critical because it's where we, I think in the right hands you can take something out of its context...” (29:13)

• Examples:
  • Ralph Brogink’s radiator-clad pavilion
  • Retruvius (London-based salvage designers)
  • Ricardo Bofill converting a cement works into a home/studio
  • Battersea Power Station (London), Michigan Theatre (Detroit, car park/theatre hybrid), Tempelhof Airport (Berlin), The High Line (NYC), cooling towers (South Africa), Wunderland Kalkar (Germany, fun park)
• Public Memory & Place-Making: Reuse preserves unique histories and prevents generic redevelopment.

  “If we remove everything and start again, we run the risk of it just looking like a generic kind of world... But if we hang on to these incredible bits of infrastructure... it adds a rich resonance.” (36:51)

  • Memorable: Watching Alien 2 in a converted steel works park in Essen, Germany.

    “It was even more frightening than ever because I was in this kind of incredibly kind of gothic steel works while I was watching this quite frightening movie.” (39:49)

7. Theoretical & Artistic Perspectives

• Incorporates not just built interiors but installations, films, and paintings (e.g., Psycho, Parasite, Antonello da Messina’s St. Jerome in His Study).

  “For me, the interior is sometimes at its most kind of resonant when it's in these formats, because they really distill ideas about the interior.” (43:30)

  • St. Jerome in His Study recommended for its layers of meaning and insight into interiority across time.

8. Current Work and Philosophies

• After finishing the main book, Brooker has released "The Super Reuse Manifesto"—a punchy, text-driven polemic about why reuse must be central in creative practice:

  “We really need to shout about this and we really need to be quite polemical about how we can... tell people this is the only way that we can be creative now.” (47:35)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I think that the real fundamental basis of the interior is this space called the room.” (06:09, Brooker)
• “Chronology… is very problematic in relation to the interior… because it is quite clearly a space that exists in and out of time.” (08:30, Brooker)
• “The whole idea of the kitchen becoming a kind of piece of theater is much more to do with open plan living and then the kind of the way that we prepare and consume food in a very different way to what we did in the past.” (20:57, Brooker)
• "It's not often in any space that you are either naked or semi clothed. And therefore this is a room which kind of projects some form of vulnerability." (26:09, Brooker)
• “Reuse preserves unique stories and prevents things turning into a ‘generic kind of world.’” (36:51, Brooker)
• “For me, the interior is sometimes at its most resonant when it’s in these formats [films, paintings], because they really distill ideas about the interior.” (43:30, Brooker)
• “I would definitely have a look at [Antonello da Messina’s St. Jerome in His Study]... I've been looking at it for probably 20 years now, and I still enjoy it every time I come to it.” (45:18, Brooker)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introduction & Book Motivation: 02:46 – 04:36
• Approach and Organization: 05:13 – 11:51
• Selection Process & Visual Storytelling: 12:28 – 14:00
• Challenging Themes (Atmosphere, Technologies): 14:30 – 16:38
• Kitchens as Theatrical/Public Spaces: 17:47 – 21:41
• Bedrooms & Privacy Over Time: 22:10 – 24:47
• Bathrooms & Vulnerability: 25:20 – 28:41
• Repurposing and Reuse (Private/Public): 29:07 – 33:38
• Infrastructure & Urban Reuse: 33:38 – 40:22
• Book-focused Interiors/Libraries: 40:32 – 42:57
• Favorite Images & Paintings: 43:13 – 45:50
• Next Projects (“The Super Reuse Manifesto”): 46:09 – 49:02

Conclusion

Brooker’s “The Story of the Interior” blends theory, visual examples, history, and urgent advocacy for reuse and reinterpretation of space. The episode covers the richness of interior scholarship, the imaginative reuse of buildings, the ways interiors shape and reflect personal and public life, and prompts listeners to see even familiar spaces in new ways. Highly recommended for anyone interested in design, architecture, history, or everyday environments.