ABSTRACT
The starting point of the twentieth-century interior was the byelaw, terraced house, with its strong distinctions of front:back, and upstairs:downstairs, and its functional division into rooms. The interior was not designed to accommodate primary production (although home-based and backyard industries most probably lasted longer and on a larger scale than is normally allowed, until they were scoured out by slum clearance). Nor was it designed to accommodate religious observances – the only vestige of this once important function of the home was in the parlour, with its hearth, family photographs and family Bible. The internal divisions of the house, nevertheless, constituted codes of use that were broken only under some strong imperative. This might, for instance, be the infirmity of the aged who had to bring their beds downstairs – something they would resist as long as possible; or it might be the intrusion of other cultures with different and overriding domestic codes. Thus Muslim households needed separate accommodation for men and women; many cultures separated inmates and strangers; and many brought the sacred back into the home, needing shrines, special places for prayer, ritual washing and perhaps religious gatherings (NFHA, 1993).
