The interior is that space that architecture makes, which is at once set apart from the world and in its midst. Regardless of its scale, whether that of a dwelling, a temple, a settlement, a city or a continental territory, the interior is informed and shaped by ideas. These ideas appear in architecture and in the great variety of its interiors that we take to be public: those within which we consider ourselves to be free individuals, and where we see ourselves among others; those within which we are conscious of our place in society and in the world. Public interiors have been designed to affect and condition our consciousness and our behaviour, our relations to others and to authority.