ORNAMENT

Ornament ORNAMENT While not attempting to give a complete history of ornament in architecture, what is addressed here is the conventional use of ornament in architecture to elicit certain responses. Conventionally ornament “was not meant solely for pleasure” as suggested by the fathers of Modernism Loos and Le Corbusier, but “conveyed vital information about the rank of the owners” and “participated in the expression of social values, hierarchies and order.”9 Beyond being simple decoration or for beauty’s sake, ornament played a significant role in accentuating structure and deciphering architectural spaces.10 As outlined by Bloomer in great detail, ornament was conventionalised, which enabled a common architectural ‘dialect’ to disseminate meaning through architecture. Such conventionalisation – that is the classification and formalisation of the classical orders – contributed to bolstering the authority of the classical style.11 One period of architecture that might be seen as taking ornamentation too far is the Baroque (and late-Baroque otherwise known as Rococo) period, yet despite their excess

9 Antoine Picon, Ornament: The Politics of Architecture and Subjectivity (Chichester, UK: Wiley, 2013), 11. 10 Bloomer, The Nature of Ornament: Rhythm and Metamorphosis in Architecture, 20.; Picon, Ornament: The Politics of Architecture and Subjectivity, 39. 11 Bloomer, The Nature of Ornament: Rhythm and Metamorphosis in Architecture, 47-49.; Payne, From Ornament to Object: Genealogies of Architectural Modernism, 15-16.

Figure 4. Andrea Palladio. Corinthian capital detail.

these “decorated elements followed established patterns.”12 In outlining his concept of ‘the fold’ Gilles Deleuze uses the tendencies of Baroque excessive ornamentation. His analysis of Baroque embellishment and adornment in art, architecture and music reveals “the incommensurate and extravagant”13 deployment of ornament. For Deleuze, “the problem is not how to finish a fold, but how to continue it, make it go through the roof, take it to infinity.”14 But Deleuzian notions of the fold do not only relate to the Baroque period. Expressions of the fold can be found in the undulating works of Frank Gehry or the hyper-embellished hypothetical projects of Mark Foster Gage. Such works recharacterise ornament and mobilise not only the concept of the fold, but also the sublime, to elicit emotional responses to their architecture.

12 Bloomer, The Nature of Ornament: Rhythm and Metamorphosis in Architecture, 22. 13 Deleuze, "The Fold," 246. 14 Ibid., 242.

Figure 5. Mark Foster Gage Architects. Khaleesi Tower.