Aftertaste: Immaterial Environments, a series of lectures and roundtable conversations dedicated to the critical review of interior design, will take place for the fourth year April 1 & 2 at the Parsons Manhattan campus.
The Aftertaste symposium was originally initiated to imagine and launch a new MFA Interior Design program. Held annually in April, it continues a tradition of innovation in Interior Design education at Parsons dating back to 1906 when Frank Alvah Parsons founded the first Interior Design program in the United States.
Frank Alvah Parsons
The symposium will investigate aspects of interior space that are intangible yet highly perceived. What are some of the immaterial qualities that make up our surroundings? How do we better understand elements of interior climate and the physiological and psychological impact of the interior so that these become material with which we create and educate?
A group of designers, physicians, scientists, scholars and artists will come together to explore these questions. Speakers include Robert Irwin, Lisa Heschong, Philippe Rahm, Natalija Subotincic and Alexander Wunsch.
An exhibition and panel discussion called Radical Shifts will document the transition from an ‘Interior Design’ to an ‘Environmental Design’ program at Parsons dating from the mid-60s, a predecessor to the current Program in Interiors.
