ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the creation of 'modern tendencies' via an exploration of the archive records of prominent British furniture retailer Heal and Son Ltd in London's Tottenham Court Road, refracted through the work of Pierre Bourdieu. Beverley Skeggs outlined the dominance of symbolic economies as new sites of social inequality and discrimination. The story of modern furnishing viewed as macrology tells of a progressive movement toward design as an organizing feature of the domestic interior. For Bourdieu, the age of mass production witnesses the emergence of new economies. A market in 'cultural goods' can be seen to form, specifically, a trade conducted in the currency of symbolic capital. For Bourdieu, the age of mass production witnesses the emergence of new economies. The patent expansion and professionalization of channels of interior design advice can only serve to confirm this view of the modern attitude to the home as the scene less of dwelling than of designing.
