Windows Without Curtains

In several modernist apartments of the 1920s, architects discouraged heavy curtains. Light had to enter freely, windows remain visible, and the interior appear rational, almost transparent. For some inhabitants, this new aesthetics seemed elegant and hygienic. For others, living without fabrics or ornaments mostly gave the impression of inhabiting a clinic.

In the 1920s, several European modernist architects reject bourgeois interiors loaded with carpets, hangings, and heavy curtains.

The modern movement on the contrary defends luminous, airy, and visually simplified spaces. Windows become essential surfaces destined to let in the maximum natural light. Le Corbusier even speaks of the house as a "machine for living." The interior must function efficiently rather than reproduce the decorative codes of the 19th century.

In ensembles like the Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart, modernist apartments often use white walls, integrated furniture, and large horizontal openings. Heavy curtains are sometimes perceived as residues of a dusty and unhealthy past.

This aesthetics also possesses a political and medical dimension. Light, air, and easy-to-clean surfaces are associated with modern hygiene and the fight against certain urban diseases. But several inhabitants find these spaces uncomfortable or too exposed. Critics sometimes speak of cold, impersonal, or almost hospital-like interiors. Modernism thus transforms a banal object — the curtain — into a major cultural issue. Controlling light becomes a way to entirely redefine the relationship between intimacy, health, and domestic architecture.