TRACING ORNAMENT THROUGH ARCHITECTURE: BDES3011 Architectural History and Theory
UNEXPECTED INSTANCES OF ORNAMENT IN Tracing Ornament Through Architecture: Unexpected BRUTALISM Instances of Ornament in Brutalism
INTRODUCTION
While once integral to the practice of architecture and design, ‘ornament’ has suffered since its apparent rejection during Modernism in the twentieth century, heralded by Adolf Loos’ essay Ornament and Crime, first published in 1908. 1 Since then ornament has been “tainted by contemporary uses of the term itself” as it has “become loaded with conflicted and even negative meanings.” 2 Associations with embellishment and decoration led ornament to be considered no more than a superficial appliqué, a superfluous and unnecessary frivolity attached to architecture. Before such a falling out of favour, however, ornament was engaged to express narratives and even social hierarchies, performing a key signalling role in architecture. According to Bloomer, conventionalisation of and the use of conventionalised ornament up until the nineteenth century facilitated a sort of ‘linguistic’ consistency and legibility in architecture, reinforcing the authority of the classical order. 3 Similarly, during this period – i.e. pre-twentieth century
Adolf Loos, "Ornament and Crime," in Ornament and Crime: Selected Essays, ed. Adolf Opel and Michael Mitchell (Riverside, California: Ariadne Press, 1998 [first published 1908]). 2 Kent C. Bloomer, The Nature of Ornament: Rhythm and Metamorphosis in Architecture (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000), 15. 3 Alina Alexandra Payne, From Ornament to Object: Genealogies of Architectural Modernism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 15. 1
1
