They feature many homes from the 1990s, as well as the late 1980s and 2000s (let’s call it the long 1990s) that appeal to the same sensibility as the diorama (including many Donald Judd-esque bright loft-studio spaces). mattress on the floor). Yet despite my preconceived notions of what 90s interiors are, the more I scroll and save, the less certain I am that I know how to define them. At times they feel futuristic and functional with a touch of the surreal (eg Sylvie Fleury’s ‘Bedroom Ensemble’). And—or they feel whimsical and anachronistic (see Lorenzo Prando and Riccardo Rosso’s Milan apartment, where a Renaissance painting sits next to a Memphis bed on wheels). Indeed, the ’90s were caught between the lavish excesses of the ’80s and more of the ’00s, Marta explains over email: ‘The era of white, purity and balance.’ What comes through in featured homes is personality. ‘Homes like no other,’ says Hannah. ‘In the 1980s and 1990s, what you see is an interest in cultivating a personal style.’ Marta agrees: ‘Be brave and be yourself.’
Despite the Y2K trend currently dominating fashion, the interiors of the 1990s and 2000s are still less popular than those of the 1970s and 1980s. ‘The hashtag for 1990s and noughties interiors, like, doesn’t exist,’ says Hanna. Although he certainly believes trends A comeback is due, particularly the use of colour: ‘Citrus colors (…) like lime and tangerine and hot pinks that have been out of circulation for a while – or just purple in any variation.’ And for DIYers: ‘Sponge-painting – that wash painting that’s very grunge-meets-medieval,’ adds Hannah. Marta notes some other ’90s tropes that may or may not make a comeback: ‘Some trends would be considered crazy nowadays – carpets on the walls, for example.’ An East-meets-West aesthetic, or the use of African sculptures, would not, for good reason, find its way into the pages of a magazine today.
‘It’s interesting to see curators in the late 1990s looking back at what would have been the defining style of the time,’ says Louise Plattman, who has closely researched the 1998 diorama, which was first installed 25 years ago. ‘Most of it is very built up – everything there was built in the nineties, when nobody’s house is actually fit for full time,’ he says. Industrial-style loft conversions became popular in post-Thatcher Britain, particularly in areas of London formerly factories – such as Hackney, when the dockyards closed – and invaded by ‘yuppies’ – who thrived in the post-industrial economy,’ says Lewis. While it was not initially suggested, museum curators always intended the imagined couple to be gay (a lack of labeling that has now been corrected). While updating the installation in 2021, he put out a call on Twitter to add the object—which led to the addition of a specific VHS tape to the bookshelf.
Indeed, perhaps the interior objects that most define the different eras are not decorative, but the most functional, technical ones – like the boxy monitor mentioned above. Hanna says the images people respond to most on the domicile file are pieces of technology from the past. ‘I post something with an old TV and people say, “Oh that TV!”‘ While people keep sofas or tables for decades, we replace our electronics with something more neutral. ‘There’s an innovation in how people organize their space with specific equipment or sound systems,’ adds Hanna.
Lewis says the Museum of the Home plans to make the room more interactive, with features such as ‘slotting VHS into a tape player’. Lewis notes that, hard as it is to believe, for anyone under the age of 20 ‘this will be something they’ve never done before.’ For others, however, it will just be an embodiment, or an interaction with objects they still hold dearly: ‘I often hear people say “Oh I own that,”‘ Lewis says of the loft apartment: ‘So how can it be in a museum?’
