Inside the Mansion: A Demand for Style (cont.)

By the 1890s, the popular taste for overfurnished rooms with nondescript furniture and miscellaneous objects was on the decline. "After a period of eclecticism that has lasted long enough to make architects and decorators lose their traditional habits of design," wrote Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman in their 1892 volume The Decoration of Houses, "there has arisen a sudden demand for `style'." Like their architect counterparts, these decorators sought to bring order out of chaos using the grammar of earlier decorative schemes to create rooms that were original but unified in style. It was a revolutionary concept.

The rooms designed by Georges Glaenzer exhibit both schools. In Frederick Vanderbilt's bedroom antique twisted columns that flank the bed are brought together with the settee and side chairs of Spanish influence, the built-in bed and cabinet of no particular style, and the contemporary desk and upholstered pieces. It was this disregard for a guiding design principle  - this "delight in disorder"-that gave way to a more scholarly approach.  Frederick Vanderbilt's bedroom.

The versatile Glaenzer's Gold room is a textbook example of a "period room," where all of the furniture and ornaments follow the Rococo style of Louis XV. The tall case clock, a copy of one in the Louvre, was reproduced by Paul Sormani, one of the finest cabinetmakers in late 19th century Paris. Another room that appears to have been lifted bodily from 18th century France is Louise Vanderbilt's bedroom, by Ogden Codman. The commodes and writing desk came from Sormani's shop. His case pieces carry his name in delicate script on the locks of the drawers. The settee, daybed, and chairs are also reproductions, and the rug from the Savonnerie was made to fit this room. The interiors of the Vanderbilt Mansion present a study of the dramatic change in interior design that occurred in the late 19th century. The contrast between old and new, as defined by the leading decorators of the day, is striking. --END--

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Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Sites 4097 Albany Post Road Hyde Park, NY 12538 Last updated: February 9, 2001 http://www.nps.gov/vama/style2.html Author:ROVA Webmaster