Architecture is more than just a place of residence, it is a facilitator of art and economy. This often overlooked art form has evolved tremendously from the very first cave dwelling to European Gothic castles to glass-windowed penthouses, each with a distinct artistic expression and an effect on the increasing number of residents purchasing embellishments. In modern architecture, the sleek, blank, and simplistic qualities of new homes open up a space for each one to be personalized. Though, since every purchase one makes contributes to the market economy through consumerism, the consumerist aspects of architecture create a paradox of sorts: art is provocative and deemed as out of the bounds of society, and yet architecture specifically cannot happen without conforming to certain aspects of society, like consumerism. Yet, despite this challenging paradox, humans have still found a way to preserve the “art” in architecture through the decoration of their homes. 

The monochrome interior of new houses is a blank canvas waiting to be personalized. The wall begs for a large colorful contemporary painting to be hung as its centerpiece, or maybe it needs to be a different color, or perhaps it requires a brutalist furniture piece to complement the plainness of the wall in question. Either way, whichever you decide, the place belongs to you; it is expressive of the self. This is quite a drastic difference from the European-styled homes of the Renaissance era, where each corner was decorated with organic swirls; a projection of the architect's self imposed on the resident, where the look and feel of the home is predetermined. The occupant may live there, adding accents of themselves to places that allow for it, in line with the interior design, but the Renaissance home will always belong to the architect. Simply put, the residents' decisions are based on how the architect has realized the home, regardless of the personality of the individual homeowner. 

Today, with these blank walls, the residents are pushed to purchase embellishments for their homes. Wall paint hues and decorative ornaments, though they entertain the creative mind, also entertain the economy. As the increasing prevalence of blank homes surfaces, the market for home decor and renovations also experiences an influx in demand. The home furnishing market value has experienced a 20 percent increase since 2019 and stands at an estimated 37.13 billion dollars in 2025. 

Thus, perhaps even with the expansion of creative expression in homes, our creative expression is rooted in capitalist principles. This theory can be seen specifically as over time, architecture has evolved in parallel with the evolution of culture. Even since the expansion of industry, the mass production of goods is a large basis of our market-based economy, and thus has successfully fed into the increased purchasing of home appliances. Likewise, in today's society, individualism is heavily emphasized in our everyday lives, especially in how we decorate our living spaces, leading to the increased purchase of identity-based decorations. Coincidentally, sophisticated architecture becomes less prominent in order to maximize profit but also to accommodate the modern age's demand for individual expression. Brutalism, for example, a prevalent architecture style now, gained popularity after World War II due to its cost-effective construction. Since then, the architecture industry has gained over 136 billion dollars over the course of the past 25 years! But this benefit is not one-dimensional; consumers prefer this type of architecture. These homes “[facilitate] an easier visualization of themselves living in the space” (Property Talk). By living in a world where both these truths coincide, it is as if individualism and consumerism were roommates, living in the same space. 

Ultimately, these trends across time illustrate that each purchase we make, each poster we hang, and each carpet we unroll are part of a larger history of humans leaving their creative marks in their homes. And thus, as you hang up your next decorations, find solace in the fact that each adornment not only represents you, the homeowner, but the larger consumerist culture we live in today.