Wall Paneling

It is tragic that, in architecture in general, what is old is universally acknowledged to be suprior to what is new. For wall paneling this is entirely the case, for the modern ones are often executed without the crucial knowledge that gave them their character and their beaty, viz. of their proportions. Many different people in many different eras have used different systems, but a regular system will always produce a good result, while most of the horror these days originates from "making it up as we go along". Here, three main ways of partitionning rooms will be exposed.

"Classical" Paneling

The classical orders have always been a source of inspiration, and many have used them to proportion rooms. In this case, the dado is set as the height of the pedestal (for corinthian columns, this represents 20% of the whole wall if the cornice is included). Of course, using different orders gives very different proportions and very different impressions, but in all cases the dado is quite low compared to "normal" paneling, making any one who has any experience view them as silly being so far away from their original function (to protect the wall: no one protects a wall with one foot of wood!). It is then necessary to employ them only in very high rooms, which is done with great effect at Versailles:

Georgian Paneling

Georgian paneling, named after the Georgian period (A.D. 1714-1830),