(Domestic) Interiors

Abstract

This chapter dwells on inner spaces and focuses on the house as the first space for the exhibition of social self-representation. It insists on the hybridisation of the public/private dyad and the ancient habit of “dressing up spaces” to commemorate political, social and religious events. It traces the dawn of the first exhibition practices in these events. It thus analyses Italian noble palaces and Dutch burghers’ dwellings. Also, it discusses the ideas of aesthetic promenade and the performativity of setting up, the definition of an early museography stemmed from the desire to educate the visitors’ gaze, on the role of collecting in the evolution of exhibition practices and the transformation of the architecture of collecting.