The Decorating of Houses Continues

In chapter two of her book ‘The Decoration of Houses’ Edith Wharton encourages designers to consider the purpose of the room to be decorated. The tastes and habits of the people who will occupy the space also need to be taken into account.

Wharton stresses the importance of individuality as a priority of the time (late 1800’s). She believes people should have their homes decorated in a way that will allow them to be comfortable in their own way.

“It seems easier to most people to arrange a room like some else's than to analyze and express their own needs” Edith points out people can also be caught up in the traditions of the past. These unconscious tendencies need to be put aside. Comfort and convenience should be the main consideration she states.

When decorating a room consider:

• The purpose of the room

• The tastes and habits of the occupants

• Convenience

• Needs

• Individuality

• Design principles

However Edith does caution the reader against going the other to extreme and discarding things because they are old fashioned. Using the Golden Mean as a guide will make it easier to furnish rooms. the Golden Mean sometimes referred to as the Golden Section is a measurement used by the Ancient Greeks.

They believed using the measurements in building and design create perfect proportion. The ratio used 0.618 to 10. A rough example is to use 1/3 of 10 =3.3, 3.3 x 2 = 6.6 which works out around 2/3rds. The what some call the perfect number is thought to have been used in various buildings, The Parthenon,  Taj Mahal and the Great Mosque of Kairouan. If you visit this link you will find information on the replica of Parthenon in Nashville http://www.nashville.gov/parthenon/

“… to penetrate the mystery of house furnishing it is only necessary to analyze one satisfactory room and notice, wherein its charm lies” 

The era in which Edith was writing this book was a time of great change. The new rich middle classes had money to spend. They wanted to appear cultured and accepted by the old moneyed families. To achieve this they used cheaper imitations of past styles. The higher classes held on to the traditions of the past. It was against this trend Edith spoke out.

New decorating styles were emerging; Art Nouveau and the Arts and Craft movements. Edith appears to have wanted to bring balance. A lot of what Edith had to say is still relevant today. Are people still following fashion trends at the expense of comfort, individuality and good design?

The Decoration of Houses by Edith & Ogden

As part of my reading plan I often read biographies of writers. I like to find out how writers planned their writing, when they started to write, where they lived and who they knew. Also what it was like to live in the era in which they lived. I find this fascinating.  

During this past few months I have read two very interesting biographies; one on the life of Edith Wharton and one on the Duchess of Newcastle both female writers. Edith Wharton is most famous for her novels. However her first book was ‘The Decoration of Houses’ written in 1897 with the architect Ogden Codman Jr.  

It is interesting as I returned to the subject of Art Nouveau and Art Deco I was reading the life story of Edith who lived in the US and France in this very era. As I wrote about these eras I was again stuck by how the influence of new styles slowly gain acceptance. We can sometimes look at periods of design history in isolation forgetting they are only part of a bigger picture.

Ogden and Edith’s decorating book was very influential. Edith believed rooms should be simple in design, be symmetrical with classic proportions. The book was a great success and is important to us in the design profession. It led to the emergence of professional decorators such as Elsie de Wolfe.

Codman Jr re-introduced the classical design of the Federal period. The wall colours and architectural detailing he used and recommended were an attempt to overcome the fussy, over the top designs of the Victorian era. In 1913-1915 Ogden designed the building that now houses the National Academy Of Design.

Edith came from a very well to do New York family. She loved architecture, gardens and design. She travelled extensively and fell in love with Italian classical designs. Edith wrote about her passion in the book ‘Italian Villas and Their Gardens’. She also designed and oversaw the construction of her home The Mount. It was built in the Palladian style and the garden was designed by her niece Beatrix Ferrand. The Mount is now a national US landmark.

Besides writing about design and gardens Edith wrote short stories, articles for magazines, travel essays and poetry. She is most famous for her novels ‘The House of Mirth’ a 1905 best seller and ‘The Age of Innocence’ for which she won the Pulitzer Prize of 1920. She was the first women to win this prize.

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to look through Edith and Ogden’s book ‘The Decoration of Houses’ in a few blogs.