The Kellen Design Archives' recorded sound collections includes oral history interviews with Interior Design Department alumni and instructors.
Two collections may be of direct interest to interior design researchers.
The oral histories comprising this collection were conducted in the fall and winter of 2010 in preparation for the exhibit, Radical Shifts: Reshaping the Interior at Parsons, 1955-1985, with the goal of recording a range of perspectives on the interior and environmental design departments at Parsons School of Design in the 1960s and 1970s. During this period, Parsons' longstanding and famous interior design program completely transformed, adopting a more experimental and socially engaged program of study in the newly-created Environmental Design Department.
The Parsons School of Design Centenary Oral History Project consists of recorded sound interviews with twelve individuals as well as two audio monologues by the project's manager, Martica Sawin. These interviews, all recorded in 1994, cover the history of different academic departments and design disciplines over the course of the twentieth century as experienced by leading former and then-current instructors and administrators. Recordings are all in English.
