LECTURE 03

ARTICLE READING

What is the role of ornament in architecture today? Is ornament (i.e aesthetic expression) predominantly a technological, cultural, economic, environmental, or artistic task; some combination of these; or something else? In other words, if a fourth text were added to this topic what would the argument be?

Ornament, a decoration used to embellish parts of a building or object. Large figurative elements such as monumental sculpture and their equivalents in decorative art are excluded from the term. Architectural historian Sir John Summerson called it”surface modulation”. Decoration and ornament have been evident in civilizations since the beginning of recorded history, ranging from Ancient Egyptian architecture to the apparent lack of ornament of 20th century Modernist architecture.

In the early age, ornament were widely used as a embellish, decoration to beautify the appearance of building, acted as a media to enrich or explains the story behind the building and to showoff wealthiness. Somehow it has no practical purpose. Ornaments are usually applied inside and outside the building, every corner are decorated with eye-catching hand craft work. Column, wall, facade, every part of building that you can think of. Different building come with different ornament. For example, flora-shaped ornament were commonly used in most of the ancient building, it eventually become the representation or symbol of ancient architecture and it’s enough to explain how important it is.

Ornaments are still widely used by younger generation’s designers.for example, Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations (MuCEM), a new cultural centerpiece to celebrate the city becoming the European Capital of Culture. From the first sign you look at this building, what hits you immediately about this serious bit of building is the sheer lighthearted joy of the exterior. The seemingly lightweight, almost lace-like, facade is juxtaposed with a solid , arrow- straight concrete walkway that connects the top floor with the Vieux Port over the water. It create a beautiful dappled effect that make the building melt into the surrounding cityscape. In this case, ornament are used wisely which not only appearance ware taken into consideration it work well with the surrounding which allows the building to fit the local context.

Today’s wave of ornamentated building tend to avoid the added-on look by being almost uniformly flat and taking a simple geometrical form. Their patterning does not destroy the overall mass of the building and it usually repeated pattern that’s still comfortingly redolent of mechanisation and modernity. In my opinion, ornamentation does bring effect on economic of a country, for example White House in Washington D.C . Form the ornament and design of the building we can see that it tries to deliver a strong message of wealthiness and power, it represent how wealthy the owner is. Hence it can be a symbolic of someone economic condition.

Clean lines, flush edges, simple design, and maximum functionality are in my opinion, the ultimate recipe of modern day architecture. Loos discussed how ornamentation in architecture is considered to be a crime in “ornament and crime” he says it was a waste of time, money and resource which i agree with.

The refusal of abandoning ornamentation arises from the concern that we will lose our identity, or our culture if we stop ornamenting objects in our daily lives. Loos explains that “Every age had its style, is our age alone to be refused a style?” which is true! When looking back at history, every era had its own identifiable design elements, for example, the gothic era had pointed arches, rose windows, stained glass, and heavily ornamented interiors, why can’t we have design elements of our own without having to imitate previous styles. He also argues that “since ornament is no longer organically linked to our culture, it is also no longer the expression of our culture”, so by using ornamentation inspired by previous ages, we are expressing those ages and forgetting ourselves, therefore when future generations look back at us, they won’t be able to know about our lifestyle.