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Arquitectura y ornamento: Su impacto en la historia
Mauricio J. Luengo Ríos
Programa de Bachillerato en Diseño Ambiental
Escuela de Arquitectura, UPR RP
Recibido: 19/09/2024; Revisado: 25/11/2024; Aceptado: 30/11/2024
Abstract
This writing intends to explore the impact of the implementation and the lack of ornament seen in traditional styles in modern architecture. It is intended to be read by people from any profession to create consciousness around the type of buildings one wants to be surrounded by. Both the architect and their client must consider how the structures they commission affect people emotionally because said structure plays an important role in shaping these people’s lives. The trajectory of architectural ornamentation through the 20th century, its impacts on modern culture and society, and the possibilities of a compromise between Modernist and Classical schools of thought will be discussed to further reflect on the topic.
Keywords: adornment, modernism, traditional, design, architecture
Resumen
Este escrito pretende explorar el impacto de la implementación y la falta de ornamentación que se observa en los estilos tradicionales de la arquitectura moderna. Está destinado a ser leído por personas de cualquier profesión como una creación de conciencia en torno al tipo de edificios que uno quiere rodearse con. Es importante que tanto el arquitecto como el cliente reflexionen sobre cómo las estructuras que están encargando afectan a las personas porque dichas estructuras juegan un papel importante en la configuración de la vida de estas personas. Se discutirá la trayectoria de la ornamentación arquitectónica a lo largo del siglo XX, su impacto en la cultura y sociedad moderna, y las posibilidades de un compromiso entre las escuelas de pensamiento modernista y clásico para reflexionar más sobre el tema.
Palabras claves: adorno, modernismo, tradicional, diseño, arquitectura
Introduction
In the year 1908, Adolf Loos wrote in his essay “Ornament and Crime” that ornamentation in architecture, which is the embellishment of structural forms and spaces using other mediums of visual art such as sculpture and painting, relieves, and craftwork from materials such as wood and stone, was akin to a crime because of its uselessness to the modern man (Loos, 1908). This, alongside theories of form and function, which stated that the building’s form should reflect its structure and use, led to the Modernist styles of the mid-20th century, especially in the Western culture that dominates this globalized, interconnected world. In the modern day, many people long for designs that express beauty in a world where soulless structures are imposed on them. What has been said to depict full honesty and expression of functionality has been taken too far despite the type of architecture a large sector of the population wants and loves. The question of why architects do not design traditionally anymore is commonly asked, and its answer is rooted in influential architects who introduced new ideas that changed the way our cities, landscapes, and structures look despite their strengths and weaknesses.
History of ornamentation
Since the beginning of habitable spaces, different societies have decorated their buildings with paintings, sculptures, and intricately crafted wood and stonework. The ornament was developed to serve as a form of communication between the occupier of the structure and the average person, maybe to symbolize power, religion, morality, etc. (Heathcote, 2020). The Egyptian pharaohs filled their temples and tombs with hieroglyphs to represent the pharaoh’s power, the builders of the Gothic style implemented stained glass and intricately sculpted altars to connect the parishioner to the heavens, and the Art Deco architects implemented chevrons and Chinese and Aztec influences to reflect the economic and political dominance of the western world in the 1920s. These forms of communication became expressions of a culture’s way of life and thought, hence the difference in architectural styles depending on location and period.
The technological advancements during the Industrial Revolution led to the mass production of goods that once were intricately crafted by skilled workers such as carpenters, masons, etc., which democratized the use of ornamentation from a wealthy few that could afford such luxury to the common household. Now that these products were cheaply produced for the regular person, the wealthy saw heavily ornamented designs as a commonality, which made them adopt new theories on Minimalism and modern design that would separate high culture from popular, working-class culture (Hameed, 2023). This led to the adoption of Modernist architectural theory by academia and people with influence and power.
Loos and the Modernist Movement
In 1908, Austrian Architect Adolf Loos wrote his essay “Ornament and Crime” to critique the Art Nouveau movement of high society in Vienna. He argued that ornaments in architecture are a crime due to the wasted effort, time, and money required to craft ornamented objects for the national economy (Loos, 1908). Loos was influenced by the ideas of American architect Louis Sullivan, who introduced in his essay “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered” the axiom: “form follows function,” which stated that a building’s exterior design should reflect the interior activities of the structure (Craven, 2019). As the 20th century continued, architect Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe popularized the aphorism “Less is More,” which stated that beauty could be achieved through a minimalist approach to form. The different interpretations of these architectural theories led to the rise of the Modernist movement, which saw its birth during the interwar period and rose during the postwar era.
Modernist architecture heavily emphasizes the exposure of structural materials such as glass, concrete, and steel beams. According to the Modernist, this is an honest expression of the building’s form as it shows the materials of the building instead of embellishing it with ornament. Because of its low construction cost, Modernist-style architecture became highly popular and was used to build office buildings, public spaces, schools, and high-density housing in urban areas. This style, for example, is extremely prevalent in the United States, where progress and monetary policy are much more culturally valued than in European countries, which preserved their historical and cultural centers as they were. This also led to the rapid recovery of European nations after the Second World War, where people rapidly acquired a safe place to shelter themselves after facing a period of urban poverty due to the bombings from both sides of the conflict. Clients from large corporations and cultural institutions thus came to view ornament as an element from the past, rejecting the architectural theories from the prewar eras. Instead, they embraced Modernist architecture as an expression of the new optimism and affluence that came after the world wars, where many people gained access to new wealth and spent their lives in new rapid and cheaply built structures that supported urban development. With new styles of thought in design came implications that were not foreseen by many of the modernist architects and public officials of the time.
The issue with modernist architecture and lack of traditional ornament
As the preferred style of the wealthy classes and the people in power, Minimalist architecture without ornament was imposed in spaces such as offices, commercial centers, and public, institutional buildings. Many people learned to like or accept the status quo during that time as modernist counterparts replaced many older structures. Many buildings, such as the Singer Building in New York, the Chicago Federal Building in Illinois, and many other beautiful structures, were victims of this practice. Perhaps the most famous example of these structures was the Old Penn Station in New York City, an architectural masterpiece of the Beaux Arts style from 1910. The building saw a heavy decline in rail travel due to cheap airfares and the rise of car-centric infrastructure, making driving more accessible for the average American. For this reason, it was decided in 1962 to demolish the Beaux Arts structure and replace it with the world-renowned Madison Square Garden with the new Penn Station under the venue as an underground complex. This event fueled an outcry to preserve historic structures in New York City and the States in general, which led to the passage of the 1965 New York Landmarks Law, a law that oversaw the preservation of 30,000 buildings in the city (The New York Historical, 2016).
The Loss of Penn Station shows the underlying issue with the imposition of minimalist styles on the population since elaborately ornamented architecture helps shape the identity of a city and fosters civic pride. Well-designed spaces with attractive ornamental elements pertinent to the place’s culture create a place where people can interact with one another and feel like they are a part of their community while looking at a place that can serve as a symbol of their city or country. When it is replaced with an international style intended to be designed in every country, the city's unique character and charm brought by ornamentation are lost, making the city look monotonous and sterile. Barcelona, for example, would not be as famous if its Gothic Quarter or Catalan Modernist structures were replaced by glass and concrete towers because it would not have the charm its architecture provides.
The strong character of ornamented structures results in many people preferring more traditional, ornamented architecture to the Modernist structures built by public officials and affluent institutions. A national poll in the US in 2020 shows that respondents prefer more traditional architectural styles from 58 to 83 percent compared to Modernist styles from 17 to 42 percent. (Congress of New Urbanism, 2020) This is partly due to the perception of the human mind, which finds subliminal fixations and focal points to feel at home, which modern architecture regularly lacks (Congress of New Urbanism 2020). Studies using eye-tracking show how ornamented architecture has a vantage point over minimalist design due to its decoration, as a study in 2019 about how New York students respond to building facades in a traditional neighborhood revealed observations such as tending to ignore blank façades, attraction to other people as well as images with people in it, and the impact of fixations which influence our conscious behavior (Heslinga, 2019).
Another problem with modernist styles of architecture is that, since they typically reject ornaments and decorations common to a place’s culture, they also reject the cultural identity of the place, which is reflected by the styles that structures were built after for thousands of years, based on their natural surroundings. As an imitation of its surroundings, the building's character creates an aura that makes the person know they are at home or in a culturally different place (Schulz, 1979). Since modernist styles reject the genius loci (term used by architecture theorists to describe the strong character of a place) of where it is built, it ends up making the landscape of many cities look monotonous and similar. Show a group of people a glass skyscraper from any big city; almost nobody can tell you if the buildings are in Tokyo, Milan, or New York.
By designing architecture without meaning and identity tied to that place, the cultural lifestyle of the people of a certain place is pushed away and frowned upon. This type of design isolates the common person from their cultural identity, removing meaning from their life and giving them a purpose to keep on living. This is evident in the fact that much of the world is facing a mental health crisis. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, depressive disorders grew to 246 million worldwide, which is a 28 percent increase from the pre-pandemic number of 193 million (Goodman, 2023). Mental health is also linked to cultural identity; studies on Maori youth in New Zealand in 2018 by the journal Frontiers in Public Health have shown that a strong cultural identity has increased well-being and positive mental health outcomes (Heyl, 2023). By embracing such cultural identity, how people live their lives is recognized and gives them security to live happy lives. That identity is reached by accepting the spirit of a place, which is achieved through imitation of its surroundings and nature, as well as by architectural ornaments that invite the person to celebrate their cultural identity and live a fulfilling life.
These studies and historical examples show that a lot of people are more attracted to architecture with ornament than to minimalist techniques by the Modernist movement. Minimalist architecture is known for its blank façades and tinted glass windows, which separate the interior of the building from the rest of the city, creating a bubble. In contrast, traditional architecture invites you into the space. It attracts you by having intricate designs of natural phenomena such as floral designs, animals, and even humans linger around the structure and be in an enjoyable environment. The architecture community cannot pretend that design can solely be carried by Modernist theory and worldview around habitable spaces, as details must exist in the design that acts as a vessel to connect the building to the human and its surroundings, creating truly habitable spaces. Architectural ornament acts as that vessel to invite man to inhabit said space.
The revival of ornament
After the Modernist craze of the mid-20th century, critics of the movement started to create their own manifestos and writings, proposing a return to architectural ornament. Robert Venturi and Denisse Scott Brown proposed a return to ornament in architecture as a reaction to the puritanism of the late Modernist movement, which led to the creation of bland and sterile structures. Venturi proposed implementing a hybrid architecture rather than a “pure and clean” minimalist style (Architecture Folio, 2016). Their work led to the rise of the Postmodern architectural style, which embraced ornamental elements again, bringing the importance of preserving traditional styles for the public to the limelight. They tried to embrace its context by reintroducing traditional motifs to their architectural styles. However, such ornament, implemented by breaking the rules of classical and modernist architecture alike, was considered to lack meaning because it was placed there only to satirize classical architecture.
During the late 1980s, the Postmodernist ideals gave birth to the Deconstructivist movement, which had its origins in two art exhibitions happening simultaneously: “Deconstructivist Architecture,” held in the MOMA in New York City, and “Deconstruction in Art and Architecture,” held in the Tate Gallery in London. Inspired by the Russian Constructivists of the early 20th century and the rise of Computer Aided Design (CAD) and 3D modeling, architects such as Frank Ghery, Zaha Hadid, and Rem Koolhaas developed an architecture that emphasized curved surfaces and polygonal, futuristic designs (Leach, 2004). These motifs can be considered ornamental if Venturi’s theory of the “Duck and Shed” is considered, but many people still disregard it as an ornamental style due to its lack of traditional decorations and its focus on futuristic aesthetics.
Advances in computer technology also meant that architects could implement ornamentation in a new way, mostly as a bulkhead for the building itself. Herzog and De Meuron’s “Bird’s Nest” stadium, built for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, is the prime example of this kind of ornamentation, as its triangular beams cover the entirety of the stadium, acting as a protection for the bleachers and the roof of the stadium, which interior wall was mapped with projections in the Summer Games Opening Ceremony. Another example of this type of design is Mecanoo’s Tainan Public Library in Taiwan, in which the top part of the structure is decorated with a railing depicting floral motifs and designs.
The progress regarding architectural ornamentation done by these movements in the past decades is quite commendable, as they ask how ornament can be implemented in a way that reflects modern society, which has a different point of view and necessities from the past. These architects have also pushed the limits in experimenting with technological advances and new art forms to create new forms of architectural embellishment, which has moved the practice forward.
Despite all the progress seen in implementing ornaments in architecture, the problem is that such ornaments are usually justified with an academic understanding of the arts and architecture, which involves highly complex language and theory that the public and many university students themselves usually misunderstand. This is justified by the modern culture of abstraction, where artists create their own symbology to give meaning to a piece (sometimes creating an abstract piece that can only be justified with words), which leads to a highly subjective experience where almost nobody will understand the piece unless it is explained by a person that is educated in the subject, or the artist themselves. It is like sign language only made for the individual and not others. The architecture field has followed this academic culture of art where the concept of an individual becomes more important than the context itself. This means the architect is incentivized to create something new and innovative just to be different and stand out. This type of worldview ignores the social and cultural needs of most of the population, which is why many consider classical architecture better; it reflects Western culture in a more figurative and direct way. Although the abstract conceptual culture of contemporary art dominates the field of architecture, there are still designers who preserve the traditional ways of designing habitable spaces.
New traditional buildings
The contemporary classicists emerged as a counter movement to the new contemporary architectural styles and an attempt to preserve the practice of classical architecture. Contemporary classicism has placed its mark in architecture due to its success in embracing traditional styles and techniques while using modern architectural practices and technologies to search for a more sustainable and human centric design (PointSCAN, 2019). Such remarkable examples of new traditional architecture include the reconstruction of the Frauenkirche in Dresden, which was inaugurated in 2005 after decades of ruin after World War II and the times of Socialist Eastern Germany. Another notable example is the structures of architect Robert A.M. Stern, who designed an array of apartment buildings in New York City in the Art Deco Style, such as 520 Park Avenue and 200 East 83rd Street, which responds to the historical context and cultural heritage of the city by adopting a style inherent to New York’s identity. The construction of these buildings evidence that more traditional structures can be constructed with today’s technology, which implies that ornamentation can be produced easily, with more efficiency and time, delivering an inviting design.
Compromise
Although many prefer ornamented designs, many people still follow a dogma based on modernist design, especially in the political and academic elite and the high classes. Many corporations and clients also prefer the style due to its cost-effectiveness and the braggadocio implied with the highly futuristic and abstract designs of mansions, educational and cultural institutions, and civic centers during the 2010s decade. This means that the architect should find a way to compromise the highly modern designs that one sector of the population prefers and the popular motifs that define architectural ornament. This also suggests that the client must have the will and maturity to think of his surroundings as a whole and invest in creating beauty through ornament. These solutions have to balance the ideas of modernity associated with steel beams, glass, and concrete with the ideas of floral motifs, columns with capitals, and sculptures of human allegories and mythical beings. If a style that combines the thought of the times with the traditional ideas of harmony and decoration can be created, great architecture will be achieved, and humanity can live with a design that satisfies all parties.
Considerations when ornamenting spaces
Before considering these compromises to implement ornament in architecture, some considerations and criteria help guide the architect to implement ornament in their design easily. The most important of these considerations is the context or the surroundings in which the building is located, where the ornament implemented should enhance the beauty of the structure while keeping its structural integrity, as long as it respects the cultural development, history, lifestyle, and character of its people and surroundings. There should be a balance between the structure’s beauty and its form, in which ornamentation could enhance the function of the building, for example, placing a screen ornamented with reliefs and figurative images, which also serves to protect a part of the structure from the sun or other elements such as rain or snow. Another perfect example of this is the cornice, which serves the function of protecting the structure’s facade from rain and other natural phenomena, preventing the materials damage, while embellishing the structure by defining a facade’s proportions, also showing a visual transition from the walls of the building to its ceiling, unifying and harmonizing both components of the structure. Materiality also plays an important role in the structure because its durability connects with its surroundings and helps sustain the building and its ornament for many years. By beginning to think about these factors, architects could start thinking about implementing ornament in architectural structures to better connect with its context and the people that inhabit their spaces.
Conclusion
The Modernist school of thought has had the most significant impact on how structures are built due to breaking and getting rid of thousands of years of architectural tradition. This only isolated the people who were tied to their local culture, where they identified with and loved traditional architecture, wanted pleasant spaces, and wanted the building to have a true connection to their context instead of isolating itself from it. Like how the Modernist architects influenced the change in design and style during the 20th century, it is time to rethink how new designs can be made to respond to the necessities of the modern day, which are not the same as the necessities of a world fresh out of catastrophic conflict, which should include ornamentation. As reflected in this article, this component in architecture has an important role in how humans perceive and react with spaces, despite what Adolf Loos claimed so many years ago.
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