The controversy of the last few years over whether architects or interior designers should plan the interiors of modern buildings has brought clearly into focus one important difference of opinion. The architects do not believe that the education of the interior designer is sufficiently good or sufficiently extended to compare with that of the architect and that, therefore, the interior designer is incapable of understanding the architectural principles involved in planning the interior of a building.

Ordinary politeness may have militated against this opinion being stated so badly but anyone with a wide acquaintance in both groups and who has sat through the many round tables, workshops or panel discussions -- whatever they are called -- on this subject will recognize that the final, boiled down crux of the matter is education.

It is true that most architectural schools have five year courses, some even have six or more. The element of public danger which enters so largely into architectural certification, however, would demand a prolonged study of structure. This would, naturally, lengthen their courses far beyond the largely esthetic demands of interior designer's training.

We may then dismiss the time difference between these courses and the usual four year course of the interior design student as not having serious bearing on the subject. The real question that follows is -- how are those four years used and what is their value as training?