Seinfeld: the apartment as a meeting place
Jerry Seinfeld’s apartment offers another kind of reference. There is no grand staircase or commanding chimney. Instead, a sofa, an open kitchen and a front door become the setting for an extraordinary amount of ordinary life. Friends arrive, help themselves to food, settle on the furniture and turn a private apartment into a shared territory.
Its familiarity comes from the routines that happen within it. The kitchen counter becomes a place to pause and talk. The sofa gives the group somewhere to gather. The front door keeps bringing the outside world into the room. We come to recognise the home through the way it is occupied, as much as through its furnishings.
That is an interesting thought for our own homes. A memorable room does not always need a spectacular feature. Sometimes its character comes from how easily it welcomes people and accommodates the small, repeated moments of daily life.
The Addams Family: a house with its own personality
The Addams Family takes the relationship between a home and its occupants to an entertaining extreme. The mansion’s looming exterior, elaborate furnishings and peculiar collections tell us something about the family before anyone speaks. The house is as recognisable as the people who live in it.
What might appear unsettling to a visitor is entirely comfortable to Gomez and Morticia. Their home makes sense within their own world. That is part of its appeal: its character comes from the family’s interests, attachments and complete confidence in their own taste.
Few of us would take the same approach to decorating, but there is something to appreciate in a home so thoroughly personal. A house can be memorable because it expresses the lives within it, even when it sits well outside everyone else’s idea of good taste.
Mad Men: the apartment as an image of a new life
In Mad Men, Don and Megan Draper’s Manhattan apartment presents another persuasive image of domestic life. The sunken living room, low seating and warm timber create a sophisticated setting for entertaining. The change in floor level gives the seating area a sense of enclosure while keeping it connected to the surrounding apartment.
For Don, the move from a suburban family house to this city apartment also suggests a different version of himself. The interior becomes part of that image: modern, assured and apparently in control. The contrast between the polished surroundings and the complications of his life gives the rooms another layer of meaning.
It is easy to see why such a setting stays with us. We might remember the conversation pit or the furniture, but the attraction also lies in the life the apartment appears to promise. Like Frasier’s home, it shows how a television interior can become a reference for both the spaces we admire and the identity we hope a home might express.
If you've ever wanted to see more of that TV house you vaguely remember take a look at the Hooked On House website, it might just be there.
For another way of exploring these familiar homes, look at the hand drawn floor plans of Iñaki Aliste Lizarralde, the artist behind the Simpsons house illustration shown here. His drawings bring the rooms, furniture and everyday details of television homes together on the page. You can explore his work and find his print shops through his official site and links.
His book with Neal E. Fischer, Behind the Screens: Illustrated Floor Plans and Scenes from the Best TV Shows of All Time, takes this exploration further, pairing illustrated television spaces with their stories. View Behind the Screens on Amazon.
Related reading: Explore the house and architecture in Digger for a closer look at the way film interiors tell a story.
Off the screen.
Onto the shelf.
Television homes, floor plans and the art of creating a setting.
Behind the Screens
Illustrated floor plans and scenes from television’s most memorable homes.
View on Amazon AU paid link
TV Sets: Fantasy Blueprints of Classic TV Homes
Detailed drawings of familiar television homes, including the Bradys and the Addams family.
View on Amazon AU paid link
Production Design for Screen
How space, furniture, colour and light help tell a story on screen.
View on Amazon AU paid link
Film Architecture
A wider look at the architecture created for the screen.
View on Amazon AU paid linkThese are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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Book covers via Open Library.
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