Ornament and Its Discontents
Disguise, makeup. Expression of the subjectivity of a group, language, or sign. Historical document, emblem of fleeting fashions. A crime. Ornaments have been interpreted in different ways and are considered one of the most degenerate sins of architecture. Resisting the temptation of decoration has become a virtue, a legitimate sign of authenticity and a possible future.
In the renowned "Ornament and Crime," Adolf Loos questions the use of ornaments based on a notion of progressive history, in which the past is subordinated to the future. He understands that in order to live in the metropolis, the suppression of exterior identity was necessary, and thus, the purity of form began to be seen as a possibility. In this context, ornaments were relegated to backwardness (of the people), whims (of women), immaturity (of the self), deviation (of the misfits), disorder (from eclecticism to racial mixing), and decadence (of the old regime). As a result, the principles of rationality, the natural essentialism of the "truth of materials," and functionalism were privileged, representing the dominant moral values of the bourgeois and patriarchal order, whose mass industrial production of the 20th century was chosen as the primary model.
Enunciating the modern rejection of ornamental elements, the author Aline Payne reinforces that ornamentation has never ceased to exist within domestic environments, as everyday objects have continued to fulfill the decorative and symbolic role once performed by ornamentation.
Modernist universalism began to be criticized more and more in the 1960s. The references to Western architecture underwent a radical transformation during visits to traditional European cities and incursions into "ugly and banal" American suburbs. A more targeted example of this criticism is the text "Ornament Is Not a Crime," in which Joseph Rykwert directs his critique towards the historical antecedents that led to this disqualification of ornaments and examined the debates of the time when they began to be reintegrated into architectural theory, no longer with the same meanings as in the past, but with new senses relevant to contemporary themes.
The debates surrounding ornaments intersect with themes of gender and sexuality in books such as "The Language of Post-modern Architecture" by Charles Jencks, which presents a sensual approach to space and describes the "Gay Eclectic" style, linking values of bourgeois white homosexuality to post-modern architectural techniques such as irony, parody, and transvestism (using terminology coined by the author about the non-naturalization of the gender binary), similar to how Susan Sontag does in "Notes on Camp."
From feminist studies to early conceptual explorations, queer and trans discussions of architecture can play a destabilizing role concerning universalizing convictions of rationality and progress, creating opportunities for less autocratic ways of creation.
Jack Halberstam points out that "conceptions of gender have irreversibly changed from a binary view to a multiple one; from centralizing physical embodiments to spatializing identities; from the definitive to the fractal. And as new genders are formed, old ones have been destroyed. Gender ideologies that once facilitated intuitive connections - between the home and the maternal body, or the skyscraper and the male body as a weapon, or the city and femininity as a ship, etc. - are now completely disrupted."
How can ornaments mobilize a more fluid and less essentialist architectural desire? What perspectives can emancipate ornament from typical ideas of excess, crime, and the past?
The Ornament as Identity
The grammars of ornaments fulfill various social and meaningful functions that allow distinguishing civilizations and subjectivities, establishing cultural crossings, and composing different spatial narratives. Ornamentation suggests a connection to other territories and times, enabling different expressions to be recognized in increasingly diverse and complex social contexts.
Gender issues are prominent in the ornament debate. Architectural elements related to the structure were privileged by the functionalist ideal and deemed more relevant, assuming characteristics considered masculine that gained prominence at the expense of cladding or "mere decoration," seen as superfluous and inauthentic—hence, feminine. The echoes of this practice persist to this day. While spaces are conceived by this gender polarization, they function as disciplinary devices, following Foucault's conception, which are both a product of and inform a design practice based on the denial of ornament. The persistent pursuit of authenticity, a truth of materials, both in favor of austerity, updates the veiled intention of denying aspects traditionally associated with femininity.
The influence of the architectural legacy of the 20th century, updated through canonical readings, has favored the maintenance of rationality and technology as "neutral" and "eternal" ideals, which continue to subjugate the cultural meanings that pulse from ornamentations present in other forms of social production of space and buildings. The suppression of ornamentation, in this case, can be read as a political relationship, as it has become clear that the universality of modernity was articulated with coloniality, as suggested by Aníbal Quijano and critical intellectuals of colonization. Therefore, the act of modernization has almost always operated on the premise of undermining pre-existing identities. Ornamentation has suffered consequences from this movement and, precisely for that reason, also represents a sign of resistance to this process.
These effects of the removal of ornamentation by modern architecture are unevenly absorbed by different territories, particularly non-Western ones, where the use of referential and figurative elements continued to be produced, including within modern architectural production. In these contexts, buildings are composed of ornamental systems that play a central role in assigning meaning and symbolism to the constructed structures. Thus, there has been resistance to abandoning figurative elements, avoiding the absence of ornamental pieces and their consequent emptiness in transmitting signs and elements of cultural identity.
Breaking New Grounds
Symbolic languages have systems that transcend beyond the conception of architecture professionals, similar to technical languages, but they sometimes receive different attention, investment, and rigor. The very idea of ornamentation, as it may have seemed until now, does not refer to the same set of elements or objects throughout history.
Even in the 1970s, when criticizing Modernism, architects Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi already stated that the denial of ornamentation also corresponded to a communication tool and had a symbolic aspect: "When modern architects righteously abandoned ornamentation in buildings, they unconsciously designed buildings that were ornament." Although they incorporated symbolic aspects and works of art and guided the form of the building based on aesthetic, political, and social principles, the modernists preserved the hierarchy and polarized dichotomy between structure and cladding, always maintaining the prominent sobriety of this language that acquired a sense of exclusivity or, as Rem Koolhaas stated, "The minimum is the ultimate ornament, a virtuous crime, the Contemporary Baroque."
In the discussions on the Baroque as conceptualized by Bolívar Echeverría in "The Modernity of the Baroque," in contention with Koolhaas' trials, the writer suggests that we are in "a world that wavers, a decayed order due to its own inconsistency, contradicting itself and wearing itself out to exhaustion; along with it, elemental, profound confidence that irreversibly disappears. The wavering world is that of modernity, of the trust in a culture that teaches us to live progress as an annihilation of time, to establish territory through the elimination of space, to employ technique as an obliteration of chance, that places nature-for-man as a substitute for the Other, for the non-human: that practices affirmation as the destruction of the negated."
The resurgence of ornamentation and languages of excess, more than mere ostentation, also assert themselves as challenges to the seemingly superior position of minimalism. The ornament thus critically appropriates dissimulation strategies, creating tension between the present and specific projections of the future, distortions of the past, or mere manipulations between what is true and what is false.
When in contact with Arab architecture, Swiss architect Jacques Herzog recognized ornamentation as a tool for the destruction of a "valid" form. He said ornamentation helped overcome form obstacles by avoiding its display and allowing doubt. Ornamentation enables dialogue between opposing fields: masculine and feminine, tradition and dissent, civilization and barbarism.
Such intersections remain rejected, demonstrating the difficulty of dealing with previously invisible cultures and mixing with them. Now, the production of space can be questioned and disputed by identities that differ from the normativity of progress in an attempt to democratize and embrace a diversity of bodies, performativities, and ideas, as revised by philosopher Judith Butler in "Bodies that Matter."
Maintaining ornamentation as a scapegoat suggests a reaffirmation of the status quo imposed by the universalizing and modernizing ruler. Returning ornamentation as a possible architectural element still faces resistance from the professional and theoretical field of architecture. This antagonism did not prevent architects such as Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Lúcio Costa from transitioning from eclecticism to modern ethos. The aim here is not to blame modernity, but to mobilize which achievements produced by this model can be repositioned — considering that design and critical practices stemming from this thinking, despite being in a global and fragmented context, still have roots in spatial practice and educational institutions.
Ornament Is a Party
Repositioning ornamentation's role does not imply a return to past ornamentation. After all, ornamentation was already part of a Fine Arts system, a codified language based on antiquity's idealism. Ornamentation — and how it has been represented or made invisible in architecture history — allows us to intersect different thoughts and practices to generate metaphors that challenge the architectural canon's thinking about space. Applying these virtuous elements can challenge the meaning and social role of a building in contemporary society, aligning with discussions of gender, class, race, colonialism, and sexuality.
Through an inherently dissident contribution, ornamentation can occupy a hybrid and contested place as an architectural element with different meanings. In an increasingly uncertain and fragmented world, ornamentation can be an invitation to a diversity celebration: a party.
This text was jointly prepared by Arquitetura Bicha (@arquiteturabicha), a Brazilian project that seeks the visibility of architecture made and performed by LGBTQIAPN+ people. Signed by: Clevio Rabelo, Fernanda Galloni, Frederico Costa, Frederico Teixeira, Lucas Reitz and Victor Delaqua.
