ABSTRACT
Interior design is one of the most profitable industries in today's market. This enterprise has an annual revenue of approximately 11.5 billion dollars. Prior to the nineteenth century, interior design was conceptualized as an integrated part of architecture, comprised entirely of structural modifications. The period between 1840 and 1890 outlines the birth of interior design as we know it in postmodern times. Hence, the birth of interior design as a discipline overlaps with the gender separation. Such distinction of male and female territories had the house as a point of reference, establishing other binaries as well, like interior/exterior and private /public. The chapter examines the concept of "man cave" in Latin America by analyzing the novel De sobremesa, written by Jose Asuncion Silva. It argues that the notion of man cave in interior design is not a recent aesthetic phenomenon. It is one that can be traced back to the late nineteenth century, at least in Latin America.
