These 30 Pictures Of Interiors From The ’50s To ’80s Are Captivating To Look At

Ever since people existed, they've always wanted to create a pleasant environment for themselves. That’s why interior design exists. 

As Encyclopedia Britannica put it, while the need to have a pleasant environment isn’t new, interior design as a thing kind of is. The term “interior decoration” was used for the first time in 1904. Years later, in the 1930s, the similar term “interior designer” was coined by an “Interior Design and Decoration” magazine. Little by little, the concept of interior design and its profession developed. 

Nowadays, sources like Wikipedia describe interior design as the art and science of designing the interior of a building in a way that it becomes a safe, functional, and aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using it. 

While the things that are considered safe or functional stay relatively similar over time, things that are considered aesthetically pleasing change quite often. In fact, usually, each new decade brings new things that are considered beautiful and throws out things that are no longer viewed as such. 

As an example, let’s take the 1960s. As some of you might be aware, this decade saw the origins and spread of the hippie or counterculture movement. This movement rejected conventional customs and traditional authorities and advocated for peace, love, social justice, and revolution. The effects of it are still felt to this day. 

Besides sociopolitical, fashion, and lifestyle stuff, the movement's political life influenced interior design too. The spirit of change was in the air. Apparently, hippie ideals created a desire for communal living spaces and challenged conventional home design ideas. 

At the same time, the counterculture movement wasn’t the only one that influenced interior design back then. The pop art movement had its say too. Just like hippies, pop art's roots were in challenging current norms. Only, it mainly opposed dominant approaches to art. The movement drew inspiration from Hollywood movies, comic books, pop music, and many other things. 

So, pop art led to interiors having abstract and geometric patterns. It also had vibrant colors – for instance, orange, electric blue, and lime green paired with contrasting neutrals like white, gray, or black.

The decade’s advancement of technology also influenced interiors. It brought the use of materials like plastic, molded fiberglass, and acrylic. With them, the furniture embraced futuristic, unconventional shapes. The aim of the design was to be oversized and eye-catching. Think of the bubble chair, which originated during this period. 

Speaking of '60s interiors, there’s a whole Instagram page dedicated to them – @the_60s_interior. Granted, the name says its focus is the '60s, but the bio adds that there are some images from the '50s, '70s, and '80s. So, maybe we could say it’s a page of vintage interior photos. 

Either way, the images are stunning enough for the page to gather over 249K followers. Plus, each post gets at least over 700 likes, but more often than not gets over 1K or even over 2K. 

Well, it’s no secret that people like peeking at interiors. After all, TV shows about them tend to be a guilty pleasure (or sometimes not even that guilty) for many. Clearly, as this account shows, not only TV shows about interiors are liked by the public, but images of them too. 

That’s where our list comes in – here you can find plenty of photos of vintage interiors, collected from the @the_60s_interior page. So, now it’s your chance to decide which of these images are the most captivating by upvoting them!