‘Healthy Furniture’: Interior Design and Hygiene in Victorian Britain

Learn how Victorian Britain dealt with pandemics and how sanitary reform influenced interior design

Hand sanitizer, social distancing, face masks, and plexiglass dividers are today’s responses to a global health crisis. Victorian Britain was also confronted with pandemics. In response, large public projects, such as the construction of London’s underground sewer network, addressed civic hygiene.

Less known is the extent to which sanitary reform influenced interior design during the 1870s and 1880s. Architect R.W. Edis, for example, published a pamphlet ‘Healthy Furniture and Decoration’ while designer E.W. Godwin prioritized ‘light, air, and cleanliness’ in the domestic realm.

Celebrated for his famous clients, including James McNeill Whistler and Oscar Wilde, Godwin fashioned spare and calm interiors as healthful alternatives to dust-infested Victorian clutter.

In this talk, architect and architectural historian, Richard W. Hayes explores how some of the most elegant interiors of the Aesthetic Movement reflected up-to-date thinking on hygiene and well-being.