ABSTRACT
Decor is an ancient and complex practice that goes well beyond the indulgences or the caprices of the individual taste. It is in fact, as Victorian homemakers and modern sociologists have always known, a social practice: a matter for the gods in the Vitruvius's time, the state in the early modern Europe, and whole the socioeconomic classes in the contemporary world. De Wolfe's assumption that the ultimate standard of the good taste must be French, and 18th century, is still shared by the many decorators. Interior decor, then, is a way of transforming buildings to make their architectural generalities more appropriate to their particular and ephemeral functions. Decoration is a sort of magic that binds together the elements of a room and makes them more than the sum of their parts. To decorate a room is to dress it up for a performance, to enchant its occupants into behaving like actors in a play.
