The Oriental Vs. Contemporary bedroom design theory.

Dear friends,

If you have read any interior design books/articles, visiteda few websites on the internet, you will find the word theme used quite often.

What exactly is a theme-based design?

A theme according to me is a collection of various parameters ofdesign of an interior space. So a theme may include a certain setcolors, materials, repetition of a certain element, such asa decorative item, etc...
Primarily there are two basic themes under which a design canbe categorized, 1)Oriental 2)Contemporary.

Oriental Bedroom Design Theme:

These kind of themes have a still drilled down niche designthemes, such as country, rustic, vintage, elegant, etc...One of the major thing about these kind of themes is that muchemphasis is given on the natural beauty of any material. These designs are close to nature or are shown to be close tonature.

These kind of design styles are very rarely found in the urbancity interiors. Mostly the countryside homes adopt these kind ifthemes, to replicate the flora and fauna of the outside environment.

The designer tries to include the patters seen in nature, such asleaves, flowers, plants. All these natural patterns are seen onwallpaper patterns, decorative lamps, curtains, furnitureupholstery, wall paintings, etc...

Homes which are build on country side such as farm houses, the scarcityof space is not an issue, but this creates another problem as far as designing interiors is concerned.

A bedroom, no matter of what size it is, requires some basicfurniture elements as functional needs, such as a double bed,dressing table, wardrobes, study tables, a book shelf etc..

It is sometimes possible that because of the large spaces, thebedroom looks empty after the furniture is arranged. At suchtimes "decoration" plays a major role. During ancient yearsthe palaces and castles had such large built spaces, whereextensive use of decoration was used in the form of paintings, heavy decorative flooring patterns, carvings, moldings as a decorative architectural elements.

So in this oriental design trend, decoration of the space usingvarious accessories plays a major role.

Contemporary design Theme:

These kind of design themes are very new as compared to thepreviously mentioned oriental design theme. But how did the designers came along using these kind of designs?

During the starting years of the 20th century, the "IndustrialRevolution" in Europe changed the face of our planet. Itwas easy to design and manufacture goods on a mass scalewith amazing speed and efficiency.

This created a flood of industries in and around the cities.These cities attracted large amount of people to migrate fromrural areas to city centers in search of a living.

Because of this migratory effect there was a sudden need ofhousing requirement for the workers. This is where the concept of an "apartment" was introduced. Because of the pressure of demand,a school of thoughts emerged within the architects, whobelieved that "simplicity" is the need of today's era.

They thought that, the design of the building has to be simpleand easy to build, then only we can compete with the growingdemand of housing needs in cities. That's why simple designs with mostly plane and square faces with square or rectangular openingswere used. These forms and masses were easy to build and stillbeautiful. If everything from "safety pins" to "space ships" could be built on a mass scale, why not "buildings".

The school of thought believed that a plane rectangular formis in itself beautiful and they proved this using infinitepermutations and combinations of the basic square form. That'swhy decoration was given a second preference. Today we call thisschool of thought as "contemporary". In contemporary designevery element has an order.

That's why in today's modern interior design, simplicity is thekey to an efficient design. Unlike the previous oriental designtheme, the contemporary design theme states that any kind of architectural decoration is always dependent on the basic form of the building. The form itself is so beautiful, that the needto further decorate it is not required. Today's modern interiorsspaces are simple to understand, simple to construct, andproject a kind of simplicity.

By reading the above paragraphs some of you might say that,decoration is no more needed. But this is not true. I am not tryingto force some ideas here. But most people confuse the wholeconcept of "Interior Design" and "Interior Decoration". Bothare quite different and both have a unique value in today's complex society.

Decoration was something the primitive man learned, looking atthe nature around him. He saw plants, flowers, birds, animalsand tried to copy these elements. We still use "embroidery" onour dresses. But the modern design theory says that any sortof decoration can only "enhance" the existing form, but can not be an element of design.

What does this mean?

In the above said example the "embroidery" pattern can certainlyadd to the beauty of the cloth, but the modern theory denies toaccept the cloth to be of a cheap quality. It states that every form, texture, material, shape is in itself beautiful and must beaccepted as it is. Because of this the need to further decorate itdoes not arise.

Thus decoration whether used in architecture or elsewhere is alwaysdependant on the form on which it is used, but design isan independent entity which does not need any justification from theexternal factors.

The two design themes mentioned above are still widely used today.The user must look upon them from a point of view of what best suitshis/her likes and dislikes. Only then can you give yourself andyour family the best quality of living.

I hope this article was informative to everyone.

Copyright Shrinivas Vaidya
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Shrinivas Vaidya is the webmaster of Bedroom-Design-And-Decorating-Ideas.com .Visit TODAY to get an in-depth knowledge of bedrooms
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