The Historical Tradition

Author: Edith Wharton & Ogden Codman Jr Year: 1898 (original); 2006 (Intimus reprint) Source type: chapter (anthology selection) Raw file: raw/chapters/wharton-codman-2006-the-historical-tradition.md

The Decoration of Houses, B.T. Batsford (London), 1898 (excerpt pp. 10–15); reprinted in Intimus: Interior Design Reader, eds. Mark Taylor & Julieanna Preston, John Wiley & Sons, 2006, pp. 387–390 (the selection's opening page, carrying the editors' headnote, is 387; the trailing  marker belongs to the next selection). The elision marker "(… p 15)" records where the Intimus reprint breaks off; the chapter's continuation (and its account of specific rooms) is not in the wiki's holdings. The first edition appeared as The Decoration of Houses (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1897) — the year difference between the London Batsford edition cited here and the New York first edition is recorded per the sources' own citations (see source-notes/braham-2006-wall-of-books, note 3: Scribner's Sons, 1897).

Summary

The opening chapter of Wharton and Codman's The Decoration of Houses (1897/1898) — named by the Intimus editors "one of the pivotal texts for interior designers" — states the discipline's founding double test: a building "must have a reason for being as it is," and its decoration "must harmonize with the structural limitations," from which harmony "springs the rhythm that distinguishes architecture from mere construction." The chapter's famous equation — good decoration "is only interior architecture" — founds the concept of interior-architecture three-quarters of a century before the term had a discipline. Its method is negative and historical: most popular features of modern house-planning fail the double test because they are "merely survivals of earlier social conditions" or revivals by "the archaeologizing spirit." Its positive doctrine is proportion: "the essence of a style lies not in its use of ornament, but in its handling of proportion"; "Structure conditions ornament, not ornament structure"; "decoration is always subservient to proportion." The chapter closes by defending conformity to style against the charges of servility, formality and pretentiousness — with the counter-evidence that the private rooms of 1650–1800 "were far simpler, less pretentious and more practical in treatment than those in the average modern house."

Key Claims

The functional-determination thesis: "A building, for whatever purpose erected, must be built in strict accordance with the requirements of that purpose" — it "must have a reason for being as it is and must be as it is for that reason" (p. 387).
The double test's second limb is qualified against literal structuralism: decoration "must harmonize with the structural limitations (which is by no means the same thing as saying that all decoration must be structural)" — harmony with structure, not identity with it (p. 387).
Rhythm is defined as a product of two harmonies: of the general decorative scheme with the building, and of the decorative details with each other — and this rhythm "distinguishes architecture from mere construction" (p. 387).
The founding formula: "all good architecture and good decoration (which, it must never be forgotten, is only interior architecture) must be based on rhythm and logic" — decoration is interior architecture, equating the two as professional activities (p. 387; headnote, p. 386/387).
The double test applied: "A house, or room, must be planned as it is because it could not, in reason, be otherwise; must be decorated as it is because no other decoration would harmonize as well with the plan" (p. 387).
Diagnosis: "Many of the most popular features in modern house-planning and decoration will not be found to stand this double test" — modern interiors are largely non-functional survivals (p. 387).
The survivals thesis: such features are "merely survivals of earlier social conditions, and have been preserved in obedience to that instinct that makes people cling to so many customs the meaning of which is lost" (p. 387).
The archaeologizing spirit: other features "have been revived by the archaeologizing spirit which is so characteristic of the present time, and which so often leads its possessors to think that a thing must be beautiful because it is old and appropriate because it is beautiful" — the age→beauty→appropriateness chain inverts the true order of judgment (p. 387).
The replaceability corollary: "since the beauty of all such features depends on their appropriateness, they may in every case be replaced by a more suitable form of treatment without loss to the general effect of house or room" — appropriateness is the sole ground of decorative beauty (p. 388).
The stylistic-unity prescription grounds itself in this replaceability: "It is this which makes it important that each room (or, better still, all the rooms) in a house should receive the same style of decoration" — unity not as piety but as consequence of appropriateness (p. 388).
The proportion thesis: "the essence of a style lies not in its use of ornament, but in its handling of proportion. Structure conditions ornament, not ornament structure" (p. 388).
The demonstration: a room with unsuitably proportioned openings, wall-spaces and cornice "might receive a surface application of Louis XV or Louis XVI ornament and not represent either of those styles"; a room proportioned to a period's laws keeps its style even under "a surface application of decorative detail widely different in character, – say Romanesque or Gothic" (p. 388).
"decoration is always subservient to proportion; and a room, whatever its decoration may be, must represent the style to which its proportions belong. The less cannot include the greater" (p. 388).
The epistemic diagnosis: "it is usually by ornamental details, rather than by proportion, that people distinguish one style from another" — garlands, bow-knots, quivers and gilding stand for Louis XVI to the layperson, who "if they object to these… condemn the style" (p. 388).
The architect's depreciation of signature ornament: the trivial Louis XVI effects have "most helped to vulgarize it," and their use is "a concession to the client who, having asked for a Louis XVI room, would not know he had got it were these details left out" — ornament as client-recognition device (p. 388).
Note 1's organic-style thesis: the "so-called 'styles' of Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI were, in fact, only the gradual development of one organic style, and hence differed only in the superficial use of ornament" — the Louis styles are one style's phases, distinguished by ornament alone (p. 390).
The historical diagnosis of the "style" demand: "After a period of eclecticism that has lasted long enough to make architects and decorators lose their traditional habits of design, there has arisen a sudden demand for 'style'" — with the competence gap: "Much has to be relearned, still more to be unlearned" (p. 388).
"The essence of the great styles lay in proportion and the science of proportion is not to be acquired in a day" (p. 388).
The anti-credential claim: "the cultivated layman, whether or not he has any special familiarity with the different schools of architecture, is often a better judge than the half-educated architect" — taste outranks professional half-knowledge (p. 388).
The category-confusion audit: "people of taste are disconcerted by the so-called 'colonial' houses where stair-rails are used as roof-balustrades and mantel-friezes as exterior entablatures" — interior members misapplied as exterior ones (p. 388).
The rococo audit: the wavy movement "in the best rococo, was always an ornamental incident and never broke up the main lines of the design" — when "suffered to run riot through the whole treatment of the walls… the bewildered eye seeks in vain for a straight line amid the whirl of incoherent curves" (pp. 388–389).
The definition of conformity: "To conform to a style, then, is to accept those rules of proportion which the artistic experience of centuries has established as the best, while within those limits allowing free scope to the individual requirements which must inevitably modify every house or room adapted to the use and convenience of its occupants" (p. 389).
The inescapability thesis: "Strive as we may for originality, we are hampered at every turn by an artistic tradition of over two thousand years"; the architect "may mutilate or misapply the component parts of his design, but he cannot originate a whole new architectural alphabet," nor "invent one wholly new moulding" (p. 389).
The suited styles for modern life: "those prevailing in Italy since 1500, in France from the time of Louis XIV, and in England since the introduction of the Italian manner by Inigo Jones" (p. 389).
The form-over-color claim: "Most people will admit the necessity of harmonizing the colors in a room, because a feeling for color is more general than a feeling for form; but in reality the latter is the more important in decoration" (p. 389).
The mixed-style incompatibility proof: "the massive dimensions and heavy panelling of a seventeenth-century room would dwarf a set of eighteenth-century furniture; and the wavy, capricious movement of Louis XV decoration would make the austere yet delicate lines of Adam furniture look stiff and mean" (p. 389).
The defense against "servile": "to conform within rational limits to a given style is no more servile than to pay one's taxes or to write according to the rules of grammar" (p. 389).
The American diagnosis: the charges of formality and pretentiousness "may probably be explained by the fact that most Americans necessarily form their idea of the great European styles from public buildings and palaces" — the style's palace-face mistaken for its domestic face (p. 389).
The two-knights resolution: architect and client judging the Louis XIV style by Versailles and by the simple panelled room "would be right, but they would be looking at the different sides of the question" (pp. 389–390).
The historical counter-evidence: "the bed-rooms, sitting-rooms, libraries and other private apartments in the smaller dwelling-houses built in Europe between 1650 and 1800 were far simpler, less pretentious and more practical in treatment than those in the average modern house" — the great styles' domestic career was simpler than modern practice (p. 390).
The closing liberation claim: "to follow a certain style is not to sacrifice either convenience or imagination, but to give more latitude to both" — conformity as freedom (p. 390).

Connections

Concepts: interior-architecture (the founding formula), rhythm-and-logic (new page), the-double-test (new page), survivals (new page), archaeologizing-spirit (new page; with the-antique), proportion, stylistic-unity, style, taste, simplicity, suitability, the-decorative, upholsterer, house-decorator, advice-literature, design-reform, historiography-of-the-interior, domestic-interior, ornamental-excess

Authors: Edith Wharton & Ogden Codman Jr — the source's authors · Mark Taylor & Julieanna Preston — the Intimus editors whose headnote frames the selection · Elsie de Wolfe (the professionalizing successor, 1913) · Charles L. Eastlake (the reform predecessor, 1868) · Thomas Hope (the advice lineage's ancestor, 1807)

Debates: ornament-vs-purity (the proportion condition), tradition-vs-innovation (the inescapable tradition), interior-design-vs-architecture (the founding subordination)

Related source notes: The Dining Room (Eastlake 1868/2006) — the reform polemic this text inherits and extends from furniture to architecture · Suitability, Simplicity and Proportion (de Wolfe 1913/2006) — the triad the headnote echoes ("simplicity, appropriate proportion") · Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (Hope 1807/2006) — the lineage's ancestor-document · Architecture and Interior: A Roam of One's Own (Taylor 2001/2006) — the editor's later interrogation of exactly this text's subordination-claim · A Wall of Books (Braham 1999/2006) — quotes Wharton's bookcase genealogy and names the advice-literature criticism

Direct Quotes

"A building, for whatever purpose erected, must be built in strict accordance with the requirements of that purpose; in other words, it must have a reason for being as it is and must be as it is for that reason." (p. 387)

"Its decoration must harmonize with the structural limitations (which is by no means the same thing as saying that all decoration must be structural), and from this harmony of the general scheme of decoration with the building, and of the details of the decoration with each other, springs the rhythm that distinguishes architecture from mere construction." (p. 387)

"Thus all good architecture and good decoration (which, it must never be forgotten, is only interior architecture) must be based on rhythm and logic." (p. 387)

"A house, or room, must be planned as it is because it could not, in reason, be otherwise; must be decorated as it is because no other decoration would harmonize as well with the plan." (p. 387)

"Often (as will be shown further on) they are merely survivals of earlier social conditions, and have been preserved in obedience to that instinct that makes people cling to so many customs the meaning of which is lost." (p. 387)

"In other cases they have been revived by the archaeologizing spirit which is so characteristic of the present time, and which so often leads its possessors to think that a thing must be beautiful because it is old and appropriate because it is beautiful." (p. 387)

"But since the beauty of all such features depends on their appropriateness, they may in every case be replaced by a more suitable form of treatment without loss to the general effect of house or room. It is this which makes it important that each room (or, better still, all the rooms) in a house should receive the same style of decoration." (p. 388)

"the essence of a style lies not in its use of ornament, but in its handling of proportion. Structure conditions ornament, not ornament structure." (p. 388)

"a room with unsuitably proportioned openings, wall-spaces and cornice might receive a surface application of Louis XV or Louis XVI ornament and not represent either of those styles of decoration; whereas a room constructed according to the laws of proportion accepted in one or the other of those periods, in spite of a surface application of decorative detail widely different in character, – say Romanesque or Gothic, – would yet maintain its distinctive style, because the detail, in conforming with the laws of proportion governing the structure of the room, must necessarily conform with its style." (p. 388)

"In other words, decoration is always subservient to proportion; and a room, whatever its decoration may be, must represent the style to which its proportions belong. The less cannot include the greater." (p. 388)

"To many persons, garlands, bow-knots, quivers, and a great deal of gilding represent the Louis XVI style; if they object to these, they condemn the style." (p. 388)

"he often deprecates their use as representing the cheaper and more trivial effects of the period, and those that have most helped to vulgarize it. In fact, in nine cases out of ten his use of them is a concession to the client who, having asked for a Louis XVI room, would not know he had got it were these details left out." (p. 388)

"After a period of eclecticism that has lasted long enough to make architects and decorators lose their traditional habits of design, there has arisen a sudden demand for 'style.' It necessarily follows that only the most competent are ready to respond to this unexpected summons. Much has to be relearned, still more to be unlearned. The essence of the great styles lay in proportion and the science of proportion is not to be acquired in a day." (p. 388)

"It is no wonder that people of taste are disconcerted by the so-called 'colonial' houses where stair-rails are used as roof-balustrades and mantel-friezes as exterior entablatures" (p. 388)

"the wavy movement which, in the best rococo, was always an ornamental incident and never broke up the main lines of the design, is suffered to run riot through the whole treatment of the walls, so that the bewildered eye seeks in vain for a straight line amid the whirl of incoherent curves." (pp. 388–389)

"To conform to a style, then, is to accept those rules of proportion which the artistic experience of centuries has established as the best, while within those limits allowing free scope to the individual requirements which must inevitably modify every house or room adapted to the use and convenience of its occupants." (p. 389)

"Strive as we may for originality, we are hampered at every turn by an artistic tradition of over two thousand years. Does any but the most inexperienced architect really think that he can ever rid himself of such an inheritance? He may mutilate or misapply the component parts of his design, but he cannot originate a whole new architectural alphabet." (p. 389)

"Most people will admit the necessity of harmonizing the colors in a room, because a feeling for color is more general than a feeling for form; but in reality the latter is the more important in decoration, and it is the feeling for form, and not any archaeological affectation, which makes the best decorators insist upon the necessity of keeping to the same style of furniture and decoration." (p. 389)

"the massive dimensions and heavy panelling of a seventeenth-century room would dwarf a set of eighteenth-century furniture; and the wavy, capricious movement of Louis XV decoration would make the austere yet delicate lines of Adam furniture look stiff and mean." (p. 389)

"It has already been suggested that to conform within rational limits to a given style is no more servile than to pay one's taxes or to write according to the rules of grammar." (p. 389)

"they may probably be explained by the fact that most Americans necessarily form their idea of the great European styles from public buildings and palaces." (p. 389)

"the bed-rooms, sitting-rooms, libraries and other private apartments in the smaller dwelling-houses built in Europe between 1650 and 1800 were far simpler, less pretentious and more practical in treatment than those in the average modern house." (p. 390)

"It is therefore hoped that the antagonists of 'style,' when they are shown that to follow a certain style is not to sacrifice either convenience or imagination, but to give more latitude to both, will withdraw an opposition which seems to be based on a misapprehension of facts." (p. 390)

"It must not be forgotten that the so-called 'styles' of Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI were, in fact, only the gradual development of one organic style, and hence differed only in the superficial use of ornament." (Note 1, p. 390)

Editors' headnote: "Writing at the turn of the century, novelist Edith Wharton and architect Ogden Codman are credited with producing one of the pivotal texts for interior designers. Their book equates architecture and decoration as professional activities, with the latter wrestled from the domain of upholsterers and considered as a harmonious addition to the architecture. Wharton and Codman also attend to issues of taste in the context of cultural specificity, social status and functional purpose. Considered advice literature, this text is a champion of modern thinking and design values which privilege simplicity, appropriate proportion and sensible utilisation of ornamental style to define a new version of harmony for interior architecture." (p. 387)

Open Questions

The excerpt ends at original p. 15 with the elision marker "(… p 15)" — the chapter's continuation (including, presumably, its account of the specific survivals promised by "as will be shown further on" and its treatment of individual rooms) is not in the wiki's holdings. Which survivals did the full chapter name, and does its enumeration survive its own double test?
The chapter's title names a "historical tradition" the text then defends — but the argument's engine is the double test, a functional criterion that could in principle condemn any tradition. Is the "historical tradition" of the title the two-thousand-year proportional inheritance, or the living social conditions whose survivals the test condemns?
The claim that the cultivated layman "is often a better judge than the half-educated architect" is the advice-literature genre's anti-professional pole at its strongest — how does it square with the book's own professionalizing ambition (decoration equated with architecture as a profession, wrestled from upholsterers)? Is the layman's judgment the standard the professional must serve?
The headnote credits the book with "attend[ing] to issues of taste in the context of cultural specificity, social status and functional purpose" — but this excerpt argues from proportion and history, not culture or status. Does the taste discussion sit in the elided pages, or is the headnote reading the whole book?
The book is dated 1898 (Batsford, London) in this anthology's citation, 1897 (Scribner's Sons, New York) in Braham's, and 1892 (an error) in Taylor's own notes — which matters for the genealogy's dating: does the text precede or participate in the reform moment Eastlake's 1868 polemic opened?
"Structure conditions ornament, not ornament structure" is the wiki's earliest explicit statement of the ornament-subordination logic — does it found or merely anticipate the modernist purity position (Loos, 1908) that the ornament-vs-purity debate treats as the position's birth?