wharton

Wharton's argument is architectural before it is decorative: the principles of good architecture govern interiors no less than façades. A room is a problem in proportion before it is a problem in decoration. The decorative scheme that violates the room's underlying line cannot be rescued by ornament, however fine the ornament.

Authors of The Decoration of Houses, who argued that a room is a problem in proportion before it is a problem in decoration.

Proportion is the governing principle of the interior, the face, the musical phrase, and the well-set paragraph. It is the relation of parts to the whole that produces the sense of rightness — the recognition that things are as they should be.

The argument that proportion, not ornament, governs a room — and that a house must be settled architecturally before it is furnished.