ORNAMENTATION AND ARCHITECTURE

Johanna Rannula
MAUR I








Course: Architecture and Critical Theory
Tutor: Andres Kurg
Spring 2013
EKA

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INTRODUCTION
This essay is on ornaments and ornamentation within the realm of architecture and design. However,
I will be taking a detached stance as I will not be looking so much at the visual expression of
ornamentation but rather the ideas, thoughts, theories and critiques behind and about it. It is quite
clear from the start that I am dealing with an enormous topic, one that has been tackled in numerous
books. Therefore it is inevitable that this short essay can only brush over the surface of what could
be elaborated probably on at least a 1000 pages. Nevertheless, I will be addressing two key texts,
proposals, some would say even manifestos, that are directly connected to the formation of the
trends - Alfred Loos Ornament and Crime(1908) and Venturis et al Learning from Las
Vegas(1972/1997). The former was the initiator for the modernist movement and the latter started
a discussion which is now know as postmodernism in architecture. They are the markers of the two
shifts. All in all, the following is yet another way to retell the story of the rise and fall of modernism
with the exception that this time it is told through the lens, the perspective, of ornamentation. My
aim is to map the transformation of attitudes about ornamentation during the 20th century and its
influence on ideas on architecture. I do this to touch upon and give context to a specific fragment of
the postmodernist discourse.
Before I start, I want to clear out a few things, all quite different. First, while an ornament is an
embellishment, an individual motif, ornamentation is a sum of ornamental vocabulary from an
epoch or a style (Schmidt et al, 2006). I will be using synonyms to signify this concept, such as
decoration, embellishment etc, while I am aware that some others would define each of these
differently. Nevertheless, I think that in this case the difference is not of key importance. Second,
while basing this essay on two key texts of the field there are others which are probably just as
important. I think that Louis H. Sullivan deserves to be mentioned, especially his essay Ornament in
Architecture from 1892. He asked questions which are what this essay is about: why do we use
ornament? and why is it said to be noble? At the same time he was making a revolution in the design
and use of ornamentation in architecture (Sullivan, 1892). Third, I came across a very interesting
panel discussion recording featuring writer Glenn Adamson, artist Grayson Perry, architect Sam Jacob
from FAT and Charles Jencks. The architectural theorists discuss ornamentation starting from the
question about its use, its function. I believe that this question is vital in the topic of ornamentation
but I regret of not having the space here to go further into the issue(ICA, 2011). To an extent, this
essay will touch upon these question indirectly. Fourth, when one addresses ornamentation, the
concepts of representation and symbolism come up inevitably. However, this essay will refer to this
only, again, indirectly. Fifth, while at first it might seem that ornamentation only concerns with the
architectural surface, it actually has as much to do with space. While it is clear that form determines
the surface, the latter is vital to architecture because that is the platform architecture communicates
with its audiences (and this is what was lacking in modernist architecture, argues Pell, 2010). With
these issues out of the way, I shortly outline this essay.
The journey of taste and culture, reflected in ornamentation, over the last one and a half centuries
has been like a ride on a roller-coaster. It led a path of avant-gardes of the arts and passed through
the period of Modernism - one, which has had most attention in the recent decades. But as this is a
journey of change in ornamentation, representation and taste, Modernism by itself does not suffice.
Thus, I will start with what preceded and finish with what followed this most influential trend of the
20th century, meanwhile trying to understand (and at the same time explain) what were the
criticisms and discontents that led to another shift in the understanding and values of cultural taste
in general and about ornamentation. After having outlined this journey, I will reflect on two points of
my own interest and discuss the relevance of the topic nowadays.

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THE JOURNEY OF ORNAMENTATION: THE 19th CENTURY
It is probably incorrect to begin this discussion from the fin-de-sicle era rather than from an earlier
period, because that is almost as if I was overlooking or skipping thousands of years of history. But
that is the case nevertheless due to the fact that I am not writing a book, nor willing to do that in the
future.
Ornament had become a status symbol in architecture and in other fields of cultural production. In
the 2nd half of the 19th century the situation, however, started to change. With the Industrial
Revolution, it was not only the elite, the aristocrats, that could afford to have ornamentation. On the
one hand, the production went from handicraft to machine manufacturing which cheapened the
product and on the other hand, a significant proportion of the rest of the society moved up the
wealth ladder making them able to purchase items and luxury that had be out of reach from all but
the elite so far. The newly enriched middle classes, who had not had aristocratic education,
unconsciously aped what was thought of as the taste of the rich. Owen Jones, an influential writer on
the topic, stated in Grammar of Ornament (1856), that there were vagaries of the vilest taste,
ugliness and incongruity. Both Owen and Gottfied Semper expressed their opinion that ornament
and adornment are things that the mankind cannot do without, and the degree increases with the
progress of civilization and yearning for pleasure (Collins, 1998).
The issues is even more stressed in architecture because until 1880 there had been no breaking
inventions in the way buildings were constructed which led specialists to be more concerned with
the surface and therefore ornamentation. In addition, John Ruskin, a leading art critic in the 1800s,
wrote that the highest nobility of building were not the ones which were well built but the ones
which had been nobly painted and sculptured. Moreover, it was even said that all there was about
architecture was ornamentation, otherwise there would be just buildings. However, many started to
advocate for moderation in ornamentation, probably mostly because of the bad taste that the
newly rich were promoting. In addition, it was believed that ornamentation should have mainly been
left to the more important facilities, places of rest. Where there was no rest, beauty nor decoration
had room. This last thought was from Ruskin and in reference of a plan of decorating a railway
station. Finally, it is a fact that ornamentation was used indiscriminately and it was lagging behind
the new age mechanical techniques of fabrication leaving many from the higher classes feel that the
practice was becoming obsolete (Collins, 1998).
LOOS AND HIS EFFECT ON ORNAMENTATION
I already mentioned the ambiguity there was during fin-de-sicle about the situation of ornament.
However, the most famous and resonating account came in the new century. Adolf Loos, an Austrian
thinker and architect, wrote an article called Ornament and Crime around 1908 and 1910 based on
his lectures of that time. This was a huge step towards the 20th century theme in architecture and
design - Modernism. It was more than a century ago that Loos uttered what was on the minds of
many but he did it more radically than anybody else. It was a diatribe against ornament which to a
great extent became responsible for the abolition of it in architecture and the plainness of
architectural surfaces that were created in the era after. It is evident that after this article, and the
popularity of these ideas, intricate surface patterns which used to be common on 19th century
buildings disappeared, just as in painting and sculpture detailing became less and less important
(Collins, 1998). Loos sermonised on undecorated surfaces, angled edges and straight lines. He
damned not only Art Nouveau, a style of excessive luxurious formal language, but also everything
else decorative, and predicted a future which was free from embellishment, patterns and
ornamentation (Schmidt et al, 2006). Canales and Herscher write that at the turn of the century,
Looss essay already foreshadowed the white abstraction of less is more architecture and the
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functionalist rigour of the International Style which would dominate the twentieth century (2005,
p.235).
But why was Adolf Loos so radically against ornament? Drawing his inspiration from and following
the tradition of Nietzsche, Darwin, Lombroso (criminal anthropology), and others, Loos paralleled the
use of ornament with cultural degradation, or just a more primitive state of cultural development.
For him, cultural progress went hand in hand with the renouncement of exuberant decorations.
Accordingly, unornamented architecture and applied art which Loos advocated for were seen as a
liberating tool for a more modern life. In addition, he believed that the abandonment of ornament
distinguished the more advanced of the mankind from the individuals, nations, communities and
races that lagged behind (Canales and Herscher, 2005). In other words, Loos identifies cultural
progress with an increasing renunciation of decoration (Schmidt et al, 2006, p.14). The triad of taste,
race and civilization was what allowed Loos to say such thing, and he was not the only one, it was
rather a general belief. Ornament and Crime was a contribution to and an outcome of the
nineteenth century discussion of evolution. It expanded the discourse that Darwin started with the
theory of evolution, and especially with the emergence of social Darwinism. According to Loos, only
primitive cultures would cover their objects with lavish ornamentation. And as said before, the
criticism was not only referring to the Papuans or other indigenous tribes, for example, but also the
people within the advanced societies of the West children, criminals and women, to name a few.
This idea seems ridiculous now but a century ago there was a lot of scientific material published that
validated these kinds of opinions. The primitives and the criminals alike decorated themselves with
tattoos, another form of ornament, which, for Loos, proved their lag in the evolutionary process
where the adult man of the civilized world had risen to the top of the hierarchy. The children had to
repeat thousands of years of development of mankind in the beginning of their lives with the help of
education to reach the most advanced level of human evolution constituted in the grown male
citizen. This development, according to Adolf Loos, was marked by the disappearance of ornament
from objects of daily use (Canales and Herscher, 2005, p.242). While Loos preached the exclusion of
decoration from the applied arts, he welcomed it into the fine arts. He wrote: The ornament in
every-day objects is the beginning of art. The black Papuan covers all of his utensils with ornaments.
The history of humanity shows how art seeks to liberate itself from its profanation, emancipating
itself from every-day objects, from the industrial product. Or in other words: the urge to decorate
ones face and everything within reach is the origin of the fine arts (p.249). But according to Loos,
fine art was to be the only field where ornament was suitable addition in the new era of civilized
world (Canales and Herscher, 2005).
Loos sermon was successful in that his article was one of the key contributors to the development of
the modernist thought in which ornamentation of the likes of 19th century did not have a place in
the applied arts. I shortly outline what happened with architectural ornament from the beginning of
the 20th century onwards while being aware that this analsys lacks the depth it deserves.
Historicism, curved lines, floral ornamentation of the 19th century were replaced with a rational
design that followed the form. The industrial and economic conditions of the time demanded a new
approach that made architecture an utilitarian art. Abstraction and functionalism could be said to
have been the key words in this movement. Architecture and buildings became from status symbols
to supra-individual, anonymous qualities of technology. Buildings were rationalised through
standardization, typification, modularization. Schmidt at al say that simple and economic
construction became the model for architects and designers (2006). It is obvious that the kind of
ornamentation that was known in the 19th century, and before, did not have a place any more in the
new world, it had to transform. While some have proclaimed that ornamentation disappeared during
Modernism, other say that the movement changed the style of ornamentation but did not eliminate
it. The style is best described through the work of the Bauhaus, Le Corbusier, and others. But without
spending too much time on this, I move on to see what did this trend bring about as a reaction.
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LAS VEGAS STUDY: A TURN TO POSTMODERNISM
Quite like the kind of discontent that Adolf Loos and this contemporaries had felt towards to
situation in culture and more specifically about the styles and tastes of ornamentation, there were
many who started to feel uneasy about the modernist tastes and trends. In the field of architecture,
the discontent was put down in a book called Learning from Las Vegas written by Robert Venturi,
Denise Scott brown and Steven Izenour (1997). They based it on a university students workshop trip
to the city and it was first made as a report of this research but they later named it a treatise of
symbolism in architecture. The year was 1972. It was all about pluralism and multiculturalism;
symbolism and iconography; popular culture and everyday landscape; generic building and electronic
communication are among the many ideas they championed (Unknown, 2009). While the book was
not meant as a anti-Modernist diatribe, it set in stone a postmodernist thought and the message that
architecture should and could tell, similar to the purpose that ornamentation had before Adolf Loos.
The book analyses Las Vegas as a phenomenon in architectural communication. The Las Vegas Strip is
used as an example for architectural communication over space, achieved through signs and style.
The study was, according to Venturi, the victory of symbolism-space over forms-in-space. An
internet commentator summarises the thought as such (2009): Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour
feel that this allusion is lacking in present-day (late 70s) Modern architecture. They argue that spatial
relationships are created through symbols rather than forms. Their theory is articulated through this
exploration of the Vegas terrain, where architecture is seen as symbol in space rather than form in
space. One of the most interesting conclusions of the book can be summed up with the following:
All architecture is either a Decorated Shed or a Duck. The former is to name the kind of architecture
of the more common type, one which has a surface filled with appliqu ornamental symbols that are
supposed to evoke emotional responses. Historical buildings of the Renaissance are a clear examples
of Decorated Sheds. Adolf Loos was criticizing this kind of buildings. The other type, however, the
Duck, is a building that has become the sign. The shape of it, not what is drawn on it, is the message.
According to Venturi, modern architecture is all un-admitted Ducks. For him, the hypocrisy lies in the
fact that "...modern architecture always demonstrated what it was by setting itself against what it
wasn't." (Unknown, 2009, Venturi et al, 1997).
The book drew attention to the importance of representation and symbolism in architecture. It is still
relevant for this purpose. It challenged orthodoxies and paradigms of what is politically and visually
desirable and acceptable. The application of Venturis and Scott Browns work was the idea of non-
plan which urged the planning of cities to drastically change, to loosen up and to encourage a
plunge of heterogeneity. All in all, Learning from Las Vegas was a marker for postmodernist ideas in
the world of architecture and more specifically in the appearance of the built structures which we
often call ornamentation.
A SHORT REFLECTION AND FINAL THOUGHTS
So what can and should I make of this? I have two simple observations that I want to highlight and
bring attention to in this essay and a little something about contemporary relevance of the issue.
First, I want to once again emphasize that the lack of ornament which Modernism preached was
just another style, not the absence of it. As I have already mentioned, the account of Adolf Loos was
(one of ) the starting points for Modernist thinking concerning the use of ornamentation. While he
argued for the dismissal of all embellishment in architecture, Loos understood ornamentation in a
very specific way the flowers, curls and geometry used to decorate the empty spaces on the
surfaces of buildings. But as I have a little wider definition of the term which takes into account the
whole look, the appearance of the architecture, including the construction elements and whatever
else is significant in the appearance of the building and therefore also to urban environment. Saying
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that leads to the statement that Modernism did not banish ornamentation but just created another,
one which did not use the tools of which Loos was talking about but ones which could be included in
the extended definition - the structure of the buildings, the arrangements of elements like windows,
doors etc. Saying that white is the absence of colour is as hypocritical. The fact that Modernist
designers chose to use white is equal to the choice of using other colours. At least in my opinion.
Secondly, I am convinced that buildings communicate through appearance and ornamentation is a
tool for that. I have addressed this thought already before but it is worth another mention. It is clear
that design is not just for beauty but almost always there is a idea behind each line and angle,
perhaps consciously, perhaps not. It is the facade with its look that can tell the public about its
function, also probably about the designers taste and the wealth of the owner, to name a few
options. In this case it does not matter that much whether ornamentations are defined in narrow
(floral decoration etc) or in a broad (floral decoration and the structural make-up of the building)
way. Either way the statement holds - ornamentation is a tool with which the building speaks to the
world.
Thirdly, the relevance of the topic in the contemporary situation is obvious there is a need for a
deep-rooted analysis for the built environment from the perspective of their symbolic values. A
discussion on architecture and the urban structure has to involve questions about how do buildings
communicate and what do they communicate. The preceding discussion brought forward some ideas
how (e.g. ornamentation) and what (e.g. status symbol) buildings have represented, portrayed,
communicated in the past. It is a task of ours to take this information and learn to interpret the
contemporary architecture but also the general make-up of the urban canvas in a similar way. The
question that should be asked are the following. (1) What is the language, the system of
ornamentation that contemporary building and cities communicate with? Is it some kind of style that
is applied to the surface (Decorated Sheds) or is it the form itself that is used to tell stories (Duck)?
(2) What is the message that the buildings and cities around us are portraying nowadays? Is the
message comparable to the messages that the building have expressed before such as status or
function, or is the message something completely new?
These questions are probably ageless and therefore relevant now and in the future. The answers can
be more than telling about the making of the current cultural and why not even psychological status
of the society, just to give an example. A future research could probably address the following
question as well and, in my opinion, detract some quite interesting observations: What is the role of
adverisement on building in the light of the discourse on ornamentation? How do they influence the
position of architecture? Is adverisement the new ornamentation of our times? What is its
relationship to the financial sphere, i.e. the economic dimension of the relationship between
architecture and the advertisements on top of it? And so forth.
Without further ado, I wrap this short discussion up by saying that ornamentation should not just be
thought of as flowers and curls but it should signify the whole design layout and appearance of a
building. This would help many to realize the importance and depth of the topic. Moreover, when
ornamentation is connected to symbolism and what comes out of that, it is clear that ornamentation
stands for a language that architecture communicates to the public.



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REFERENCES
Canales, J, Herscher, A. (2005). Criminal skins: Tattoos and modern architecture in the work of Adolf
Loos. Architectural History. 48
Collins, P. (1998). Changing ideals in modern architecture: 1750-1950. McGill-Queen's Press
ICA (2011) What is the Use of Ornament in Contemporary Art and Architecture?. Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B14uaSxLong on 10.12.12
Jones, O. (1856) Grammar of Ornament. Retrieved from
http://books.google.ee/books?id=S_CqHwAACAAJ&dq=Grammar+of+Ornament+(1856),+jones+owe
n&hl=en&sa=X&ei=82bUUMe-CK374QSQ3YHQBQ&redir_esc=y from 10.12.12
Loos, A. (1908). Ornament and Crime. Retrieved from
http://home.wanadoo.nl/woutervandenbrand/portfolio/Architecture,%20Ornament%20and%20Cri
me.pdf on 10.12.12
Pell, B. (2010) The Articulate Surface: Ornament and Technology in Contemporary Architecture.
Basel: Birkhuser
Schmidt, P., Tietenberg, A.,Wollheim, R., (2005) Patterns in design, art and architecture. Basel:
Birkhuser
Sullivan, L. (1892) Ornament in architecture. Retrieved from
http://books.google.ee/books?id=Vn_M6j7KejAC&dq=ornament+and+architecture&source=gbs_nav
links_s on 10.12.12
Unknown (2009) Learning from Las Vegas - Connecting with symbolism in architecture. Retrieved
from http://bundleboy.hubpages.com/hub/Learning-from-Las-Vegas# on 10.12.12
Venturi, R., Scott Brown, D., Izenour, S. (1997). Learning from Las Vegas. Cambridge: MIT Press