Design in the Medieval period

Vogue Italia September 2005, Pictorial Marina Dias by Richard Burbridge

Design in the Medieval Period

The Medieval period, also known as the Middle Ages, ran from the 5th to the 15th century. In this blog post I will focus on this era, relating it to my own context as a contemporary designer.

As a designer I have a core interest in fashion and beauty. The images below offer a sample of my contemporary interests in this area:

Below is a sample of Medieval Fashion and beauty:

1. Portrait of a Woman by Bartolomeo Veneto, c.1525 2. The Arnolfini Portrait from by Jan van Eyck, 1434 3. Philosophy Presenting the Seven Liberal Arts to Boethius from the manuscript The Consolation of Philosophy, 1450 4.  5. Maria Portinari by Hans Memling, 1470

My trip to a Medieval Castle

Blarney castle is in Co. Cork, Irelend and was originally built in 1210A.D., the current structure was built in 1446, but is no longer livable. I have included photos from my visit in 2010 below, and I'll discuss the different design elements I found when I was there:

1. Castles were built on high ground to give good visibility from the castle, so that if attackers were coming toward the castle, they could be seen from many miles away.

2. Castles were built with tunnels underneath them to allow the lords to escape while the peasants fought off attackers

3. walls were often built up to around 2m thick in stone, which is why so many of them are still standing today, even though their timber roofs and floors have eroded

4, 5 & 7. Windows are very small to allow for archers to aim their arrows out, but to make the target hard to shoot

6. Different floors were accessed by stone spiral stairs

A Medieval mood board
I have created this mood board to represent what design in the Medieval period represents to me - an important element that I have introduced into this board is the chess board, as chess was invented in this time. It is believed that it reached Europe via India, China, then Persia.

Interior design scheme

Image source

 I will explain my choices below: