In Edith Wharton's first important work, The Decoration of Houses, she states that "the impression produced by a landscape, a street, or a house should always, to the novelist, be a event in the history of the soul” (qtd. in Falk 23). Later, in her Pulitzer-winning novel The Age of Innocence, Wharton uses her knowledge and love of architecture to develop her characters, as she had previously deemed important. Therefore, it takes into account the style of the houses, their design and their European or American identification and describes the characteristics of New York society and the main characters. Ranks in the social order are shown based on where a character lives in the New York borough, the personalities of cool aristocrats are shown through simple walls and furnishings, and some characters are separated from society because they follow different lines of architecture and design d 'interior. .At the beginning of the novel, Beaufort's house immediately stands out as a character who has earned his place in society through the architecture of his house. He is the first described and “one of the few in New York who own[es] a ballroom. . . this undoubted superiority [is] felt to compensate for all that [is] deplorable in Beaufort's past” (13). This characterizes New York's upper-class society. Evidently architecture must be important if a ballroom grants someone high status, and it may also hide the fact that Beaufort was not born into the social order and has a mistress. Ada Van Gastel, a critic of Wharton who wrote “The Location and Decoration of Houses in the Age of Innocence,” points out another way in which Beaufort's property represents him: “Having entered society only recently, he resides still in the... .middle of the paper...a lot, yet at this point it is identified with New York. He tries to break away later, but, as in the plot of the novel, he cannot leave America or the architecture attributed to it. Wharton skillfully uses her love of architecture in The Age of Innocence. It shows some characters as elite but simple New Yorkers, just like their home. Beaufort uses his to break into society, but never quite fits in. However, Archer cannot be characterized so directly. He wants to be European, like Ellen Olenska and Catherine Mingott, but it doesn't work. Architecture seems to describe him confusingly in this, which portrays his own confusion with it. It could also show Edith Wharton's uncertainty as to whether or not she liked her character. In the end, when he announces that he will never fit into European characters, perhaps he is deciding his vision of him.