Ornament: The Battleground of Theory

The Journal of Art Historiography, 2019

After a rejection that lasted almost one century, ornament has made a comeback that is no longer possible to ignore. This renewed interest in ornamental and richer decorative forms has spread from architecture to design, fashion and the visual arts in general. Ornament seems to have finally regained its place among the arts and has become once again a matter of reflection and experimentation, involving various materials and media. Adolf Loos’ aggressive condemnation in Ornament und Verbrechen (1910) appears now a long way off. This renewed interest has not left untouched the field of art and architectural history. Since the 1990s, and even more so since the beginning of this new century, studies have multiplied all over the world, involving an ever broader temporal and cultural panorama. This has led to numerous publications on the use, function and history of ornament, as well as the promotion of new editions of historical treatises, drawings and pattern books, in both printed and ...

2020

The analysis of the ornament is the key issue in the studies of the applied decorative art. Nevertheless , the principal points pertaining to the nature of ornament, its expressivity, semantics, compositional principles and cultural value, have only been covered intermittently. This is primarily due to the disengagement of the various academic fields involved in the studies of ornament: art history, cultural anthropology, ethnography, archeology, etc. It seems important to synthesize the methods and approaches as well as set up the basis for developing the general principles for the studies of ornament, that would take into account all its various aspects. The definition of ornament through its decorative function does not encompass its essential features: rhythm, meter, and symmetry. Ornament can be considered as a strategy of visualizing rhythm and can be regarded as a specific art form. Apart from the formal trend, based on systematization of ornaments, the approaches to ornament as the basis of ethnocultural reconstructions play a prominent part. Studies concerning the semantics of ornament offer a whole range of opinions, but the widespread notion that ornament is a set of signs and symbols calls for a critical reappraisal. At the same time, ornament plays an important part in the process of intercultural and intracultural communications on the level of signal and index, being a special kind of "art-rhythm". The interdisciplinary approach opens a much broader range of ideas concerning the options for studying ornaments and offers solutions for subsequent research. One of the most promising possibilities is the comprehensive and cross-cultural analysis of ornament as the element of a communication system, based on the search for the links between the development of the ornamental traditions and styles as well as the developments in the other spheres of human culture. Keywords: ornament, theory of ornament, history of ornament, definition of ornament, ornament in archeology, ornament in ethnography, symmetry in ornament.

ABSTRACT Ornament is currently acquiring a renewed status through the articulation of architectural surface. It has re-emerged as a means to explore the interactions between function and decoration, volume and surface, structure and envelope. Its link to craft is evident in the writing of Semper. This essay will investigate the use of ornament in architecture of the modern movement. Kent Bloomer writes that the purpose of ornament is to “articulate a realm of the imagination”. In Function of Ornament, Farshid Moussavi explains that architecture needs a mechanism for it to become connected to culture. The paper will investigate and assess whether ornament is this connection. The making of the physical aspects of architecture involves two overhead components namely structure and surface. Structure serves the functional criteria of shelter, framing and protecting the interior. Meanwhile, surface communicates techniques of symbolic expression that exceeds the fundamental utility of architecture and acts as the interface between individual and community. The act of making architecture is inherently bound up with the cultural and material context within which the work is produced, and ornament – expressed through the procedural articulations of Semper’s four operations- is an index of the relationship between making and materiality. (Pell, 2010) The paper argues that ornament is neither mere decoration nor pure “art”, but rather a category by itself, with its own language that mediates between structure and surface, between material characteristics and the art of making. With the search for a completely original ornamental language, architects can refine images and forms, extract basic units of ornament, and multiply and manipulate them to the visual devices of contemporary conditions. The investigation will look at how ornament was used locally in the very early formation of Modernism in South Africa and how it tried to establish a regional vernacular. The other projects promote the use ornament in innovative ways that enables architecture to be linked to current cultural movements and conditions. The paper will also investigate and assess whether the articulation of surface or façade is the interface between building and culture and explore how ornament can inform and influence design.

International Journal of Scientific and Technological Research (IISTE), 2021

Throughout the history of architecture, ornamentation has been applied as elements that embody emotions through aesthetic pursuits within the scope of the possibilities, and techniques of the period. Traditional craftsmanship in ornamentation are items embodied in architectural structures in historic buildings by local craftsmen. Its protection necessitates the method of transmission from generation to generation. In traditional production times, this transmission was handled by competent people. At the present-time, technological developments have caused a radical change during this regard. This study aims to enhance how the ornaments in traditional architecture are often revitalized and interpreted by applying a re-ornamental understanding of contemporary architecture and benefiting from the possibilities of technology.

Journal of Art Historiography, 2019

THE ART OF ORNAMENT Meanings, Archetypes, Forms ​and Uses INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 23-24 November 2017 Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon 25 November 2017 ​Parques de Sintra - Monte da Lua Isabel Mendonça, Maria João Pereira Coutinho, Sílvia Ferreira (ORGANIZAÇÃO) Instituto de História da Arte da Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas Universidade NOVA de Lisboa

2008

Architecture needs mechanisms that allow it to become connected to culture. It achieves this by continually capturing the forces that shape society. This book is a graphic guide to ornaments in the twentieth century. It unveils the function of ornament as the agent for specific affects, dismantling the idea that ornament is applied to buildings as a discrete or non-essential entity. Each case exploits specific synergies between the exterior and the interior, constructing an internal order between ornament and material. These internal orders produce expressions that are contemporary, yet whose affects are resilient in time. Initiated as a seminar at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Farshid Moussavi is a partner in leading London-based firm Foreign Office Architects.

New Europe College Yearbook, 2004

Est ornatus mundi quidquid in singulis videtur elementis, ut stellae in coelo, aves in aere, pisces in aqua, homines in terra. (Guillaume de Conches) 1 Il fallait être peint pour être homme; celui qui restait à l'état nature ne se distinguait pas de la brute. (Claude Lévy-Strauss) 2