By the decade before the French Revolution, the grand salon, too, had become living space. Instead, it was furnished with casual conversation and board games in mind - the 18th century’s version of familyĮntertainment. To as a grand salon, but it was neither an oversized room nor intended to impress. A 1775 room in the château de Montgeoffroy was still referred The desire for overwhelmingly grand reception space gradually disappeared. Elsewhere in the home were smaller, more casual reception spaces - a “small salon,” In that top row of rooms is a “grand salon,” an enormous, imposing space for the most formal receptions. A portrait of the maréchal’s daughter hangs in front of the mirror.ĭuring the decades when the home was being redefined to allow for living space, architects included multiple spaces, each designed with a different type of entertainment in mind. For his client the Maréchal de Contades, the architect Nicolas Barré created a living room designed for everyday family life - chairs are gathered around the fireplace a backgammon table is ready for use. Pierre Frey Château de Montgeoffroy, Loire Valley, 1775. It was only in the early 19th century that the term “living room” was invented.Īnd the only room ever to be described as space reserved for living is the only space in today’s homes where the struggle between grand space and lived-in space continues. To mean everyday activities like sleeping and bathing.Įighteenth-century architects did not, however, use d’Aviler’s vocabulary to describe any of the new rooms. Thus, a mere half-century after d’Aviler’s pronouncement, the ideal home was made up largely of space reserved for living, and living was understood Many of these had almost never appeared in homes beforeĭ’Aviler invented the notion of living space.
The residence’s right wing was a matching master suite with similarly useful rooms. On the left side near that wing, Blondel included a dining room. The home’s left wing was to be the private domain of the mistress of the house and was composed solely of space for daily, practical use: it contained a bedroom and an entire suite of rooms devoted to bathing. The many other rooms in this immense residence were all designed In Jacques Françoisīlondel’s 1761 plan for a model home, for example, you can see the formal, status-symbol rooms all in a row across the top of the ground floor. New residences still had grand reception rooms, but these were now confined to one part of the home, a sort of display zone. The focus on daily life within the home quickly revolutionized floor plans. Published in Diderot and D’Alembert’s “Encyclopedia.” Rare Book and Manuscript Library University of Pennsylvania A plan for the ground floor of a model home in Paris in the mid-18th century, designed by the architect Jacques François Blondel.
These “less grand” rooms were the original living But once d’Aviler opened the door, French architectsīegan making rooms for specific activities of daily life integral to the design of the home: initially the bedroom, then dressing rooms and bathrooms.
This marked the first time that an architect discussed the notion of living rooms, rooms intended for everyday life.īefore this, anyone who could afford an architect-designed residence wanted it to serve as proof of status and wealth almost all rooms were display spaces.
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In 1691, in the first edition of what was to become a hugely influential architectural manual, “Lessons of Architecture,” Charles Augustin d’Aviler drew a distinction between formal display spacesĪnd a new kind of room, spaces that were “less grand.” D’Aviler used an unusual phrase to describe these new rooms: “le plus habité” - literally the most lived What exactly is a living room? Is it a formal room for special occasions, or a casual space for everyday life? The meaning has been unclear ever since the late 17th century, when architects first considered what “living” Living Rooms explores the past, present and future of domestic life.
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