furniture items fabricated in modern materials was sufficient to denote
the presence of ‘art’ or ‘value’ in that interior.
However accelerated the changes to the contexts in which it has
manifested itself, most of the defining characteristics of the modern inter -
ior are still in place. Its simultaneous commitment to two, often oppos-
ing, sets of values denoting modern private domesticity and public life;
its inherent dynamism created by the need to continually address the
divide between the spheres; its familiarity with the ever increasing
demands of the mass media; and its integration into the fashion system,
have combined to give it an inbuilt facility for constant adaptation and
self renewal. In the early twenty-first century it continues to mutate and
to address the continually renewed context in which it finds itself.
203The interior of Giorgio Armani’s flagship store in Hong Kong, designed by Claudio
Silvestrin, 2002.