In contemporary architecture, ornament has become as large as the scale of a building, as a result of ornament’s new use in the capitalist world. The new, ubiquitous type of ornament has been successful in its newly given purpose, yet fails at what ornament is supposed to be for in the first place. This essay discusses the paradigm shift of ornament in contemporary architecture in the aspect of the change in scale and purpose, the reason why this type of ornament fails in serving the intrinsic purpose of ornament, as well as suggests how it may be reformed.
Definitions from many dictionaries suggest in similar manners that the word “ornament” means a thing used or serving to make something look more attractive but usually not having a practical purpose.[1] In music, it is the embellishing notes that do not belong to the essential harmony or melody.[2] In architecture, ornament is any element added to an otherwise merely structural form for purposes of decoration or embellishment, in various styles that is a distinguishing character of buildings.[3] From all these definitions, there is no doubt that ornament is a non-essential element of whatever it is added to. An object, music piece or building would still function normally without ornament. It is something that is beautiful rather than useful. Nonetheless, ornament does add value to the object it embellishes, for it to be distinguished from other objects of the same kind.
Throughout history, ornament has played a significant role in architecture. Other than pure pleasure, ornament has also been used to communicate cultural values, religious beliefs and social status, from the intricate carvings of ancient temples to elaborate façade embellishment of Gothic cathedrals. It was not until the advent of Modernism in the early 20th century that the values shifted towards simplicity and functionality, resulting in ornament gradually falling out of favour.
After decades of rejection by Modernism, ornament has made a return as part of the Postmodernism Movement, which is characterized by its irony and playfulness, with abundant uses of sculptural forms and ornament[4]. In contemporary architecture, however, it now takes a different form. Many works of architecture from the late 20th century and the 21st century have ornaments at the scale of the entire building. The whole buildings have become the ornament themselves, rather than having smaller-scale ornamental elements applied to them. This paradigm shift can be illustrated with the Lotus Temple in New Delhi by Fariborz Sahba. The whole building is lotus-shaped, which works together with the landscape design that resembles the leaves. The petals themselves are simple. There are no other smaller details on the surface. In fact, small ornamental elements are completely absent when looking at the whole exterior. The building as a whole has an expressive and ornamental form, yet it seems to lack ornamental elements on a smaller scale. Although some may be sceptical about whether the building itself should be called an “ornament”, this can undeniably be seen as an act of “ornamentation”, which happens to be on a different scale. Therefore, architecture has not become more ornamented by ornaments, instead, it has become more ornamental.[5] The enlarged scale of ornamentation also allows the building itself to speak as a three-dimensional object, which leads to the emergence of a new purpose of ornament through iconography.
Figure 1: Lotus Temple, New Delhi
In the traditional sense, ornament begins as a luxury, for giving pleasure to those who can afford it. The more ornamented a building is, the more labour and materials have gone into it and the more expensive it is, and hence the more wealth and higher status it represents. That is still partly true today since some of the most adventurous and expressive architecture these days is being commissioned by affluent businesses and organisations. Ornament has always been used to express identity and to make a visual statement to a broader public. In this context, ornament not only is a status symbol but it is also used as a medium of public attention and implicit advertisement.
These buildings are designed to impress and call for attention through these ornamental forms. They are to be photographed, to be landmarks and to be icons. Moreover, the trend is still going on with many projects that have not yet been built or are under construction. The iconography allows it to reach its audience not only through inhabitation and visual tactility but also through observation from afar, whether that be in the physical sense as part of the cityscape or through digital media. Because of the visual immediacy, they are memorable and recognisable even when the forms are reduced to the least details like in icons.
Many iconic buildings have proven effective in branding and attracting the economic activities that they are intended for. An excellent example is the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao by Frank Gehry and the immense effect it has on Bilbao. In the first three years of its opening, the museum brought nearly 4 million visitors and generated approximately €500 million in economic activity,[6] transforming Bilbao from a post-industrial wasteland into a place of global interest. The Bilbao Effect demonstrates how a relatively small element like a museum building can affect or change the perception of something much larger like a whole city.
Figure 2: Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao
Figure 3,4,5: Sydney Opera House, Sydney (left), Heydar Aliyev Centr, Baku (centre), Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg (right)
From an element that purely gives pleasure, the ornament has turned into a branding tool, an advertisement and an economic attraction. Arguably, these ornaments or ornamental buildings have succeeded in their new function. Yet, many fail completely at serving the intrinsic purpose of ornament in the first place. Reconsidering the definition and the fundamentals of ornament, it is to make something attractive or beautiful. To better understand whether an ornament fulfils this objective, it is worth examining the intertwined relationship between beauty and pleasure. The experience of beauty is a form of pleasure, or as George Santayana put it, “Beauty is pleasure regarded as the quality of a thing.”[7] Beauty, with its inherent allure, has the power to evoke feelings of pleasure and satisfaction through visual delight and sensory stimulation. Experiencing beauty involves the experience of pleasure. If there was no experience of some kind of pleasure, there would be no beauty.[8] Therefore, the only fundamental purpose of ornament is to bring delight and pleasure to those who experience its beauty, as James Trilling describes it as “the elaboration of functionally complete objects for the sake of visual pleasure.”[9] Even though throughout history ornament has been used in architecture for other purposes such as to display power, social status and influence, most of the time they all stem from wealth, and it is this wealth that affords the pleasure of beauty, something beyond necessity. Hence, it can be deduced that, at the end of the day, all these other purposes of ornament are also rooted in pleasure.
The bigness of ornament, however, loses this original point of ornament. It does beautify the building as a whole but it does not beautify it for its users, raising a question of who is to enjoy and have the pleasure of the ornament. This type of ornamentation does not work at the same scale as how we experience the building in person. The building as a whole may seem ornamental, but when looking at a smaller square metre of the building, the scale on which you most likely experience when you are actually inhabiting or interacting with the building, oftentimes there is no ornament to be found. The scale increases the distance between the ornament and its audience. It seems to speak to and serve the wider public but not so much the people who actually experience or inhabit the architecture themselves. The audience, more often than not, only perceives its visuals and not necessarily experience it, in other words, the ornament becomes only an image rather than an experience.
It is debatable whether ornament has to necessarily be for pleasure. The ubiquity of this increased scale reflects the competition and the interest of today’s capitalist society. Ornament has been given a new function which adjusted according to the present social context, leaving a question of whether the original definition of ornament has become obsolete. Nonetheless, we humans are wired to beautify or embellish things for the sake of pleasure, as it is human nature to covet beautiful things,[10] as Wallace Rosen emphasizes that “Desire for embellishment is essentially human, and humans will gratify it wherever they can.”[11]
The problem, indeed, does not lie with the large scale of ornament itself, but rather with the lack of smaller scale ornament that it often causes and, coming with it, the missing pleasure that works on a human scale. Undoubtedly, ornament can work at multiple scales. It can be big or it can be an icon, but it is important to also pay attention to the human-scale ornament and the experience of those using or inhabiting the building, not neglecting the details that interact directly with them.
Contemporary ornament is the inheritor of both Modernism and Postmodernism. It is possible that we have fallen into the trap of the modern thought that ornament for giving pleasure is unnecessary, as an aftermath of the cosmophobia from the last century, and hence perceive less importance of ornament. Although ornament is now more encouraged than before, to avoid the stigma of being unnecessary, it is often justified as a functional part of the building.
Not having ornament may not prevent a building from functioning but it surely serves to enhance the overall appearance of a building and communicate certain messages or values. Overlooking ornamentation when designing a work of architecture is therefore a missed opportunity to add layers of meaning, beauty and craftsmanship to architectural designs. Ornament can define a building. It often works subliminally, almost as a visual background because of how familiar it is to us. Yet, sometimes it claims our full attention. Either way, it can define the character of a building, expresses how it presents itself to us the audience and reflects the role that the building is intended to play in society. Ornament also affects the experience of a building and how we perceive a space, or as illustrated by the example mentioned earlier, changes the perception of something much larger than itself. In some examples of contemporary architecture, ornament has translated into materiality, textures and colours. These could still be considered ornament if it is to embellish or to give pleasure, only not in a traditional form. Whatever forms it takes, the crux of the matter is that the idea of ornamentation for pleasure should be more appreciated and taken more seriously in contemporary architecture. However far it can reach its audience, it should not leave behind the intention to provide an experience for its direct users.
To conclude, the return of ornament at the scale of the entire building has both changed and been changed by the purpose of ornamentation in the contemporary context. This paradigm shift reflects certain things about the present society, most prominently the competition in the capitalist world. However, when considering the fundamental purpose of ornament, this new type does not adequately serve the purpose of giving pleasure, as it lacks attention to how the ornamentation is being perceived, and hence fails to provide an experience of pleasure at a human scale. It is human nature to beautify things for pleasure and ornamentation is an opportunity to add much more value to a work of architecture. Therefore, it should be taken seriously and done more thoughtfully again. This does not mean that the traditional form of ornament should return, but the essence and the importance of it should, in some ways, be revived.
[1] “Ornament | English Meaning,” Cambridge Dictionary, accessed March 21, 2024, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ornament.
[2] “Ornament Definition & Meaning,” Merriam-Webster, accessed March 21, 2024, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ornament.
[3] “Ornament,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, accessed March 21, 2024, https://www.britannica.com/technology/ornament.; “Ornamentation,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, accessed March 21, 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/ornamentation-architecture.
[4] Rowan Moore, “Pomo Power: The Return of Postmodernism,” The Guardian, September 3, 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/sep/04/postmodernism-return-exhibition-rowan-moore.
[5] Tracy Metz, “Building as Ornament: Iconography in Contemporary Architecture,” Architectural Record, December 1, 2015, https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/6317-building-as-ornament-iconography-in-contemporary-architecture.; Michiel van Raaij, Building as Ornament: Iconography in Contemporary Architecture (Rotterdam: nai010 publishers, 2014).
[6] Adnaan Farook, “The Bilbao Effect : How the Design of a Museum Transformed the Economy of the City,” Snaptrude, August 4, 2022, https://www.snaptrude.com/blog/the-bilbao-effect-how-the-design-of-a-museum-transformed-the-economy-of-the-city.
[7] “Chapter 23. ‘Beauty as Intrinsic Pleasure’ by George Santayana,” Lander University, accessed March 21, 2024, https://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/artbook/c8023.htm.
[8] Crispin Sartwell, “Beauty,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, March 22, 2022, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/beauty/#:~:text=Both%20Hume%20and%20Kant%2C%20as,there%20would%20be%20no%20beauty.
[9] James Trilling, The Language of Ornament (London: Thames & Hudson, 2001), 6.
[10] Mark Wilson, “Science Explains Why Humans Covet Beautiful Things,” Fast Company, February 22, 2013, https://www.fastcompany.com/1671902/science-explains-why-humans-covet-beautiful-things.
[11] Wallace Rosenbauer, “The Function of Ornament,” College Art Journal 6, no. 3 (1947): 222-25, https://doi.org/10.2307/772972.
