Commercial artists

We conjure up public spaces that look and feel good, taking our design cues from the domestic landscape

- HUGO MACDONALD

The boundaries between the different spaces we inhabit in our lives have been disintegrating for some time. Casting our eyes back over Wallpaper’s first decade of documenting interiors, there was a clear distinction between homes and offices, hotels and airports. Furniture brands and sub-brands served their markets via dedicated trade fairs for their respective sectors, attended by sales teams and design studios that specialised in offices or airports or hotels. Offices looked like Taylorist workplaces. Airports felt crisply high tech and high performance. Hotels had smartly neutral interior schemes of a finer quality and less visual noise than our homes.

What we call the ‘contract market’ – by which we mean furniture designed for commercial spaces – was clearly delineated, focused and readable, reflecting and supporting our various interior worlds.