Ornamentation 2017
What is the role of ornament in architecture today? Is ornament (i.e. aesthetic expression) predominantly a technological, cultural, economic, environmental, or artistic task; some combination of these; or something else? In other words, if a fourth text were added to this topic, what would the argument be?
For over a century, the controversial issue of ornament has oscillated between the two extreme conditions of being condemned and praised. Ornament still remains as a problematic and critical topic, as it maintains its blurry, unclear, and slippery character. However, in my opinion, ornamentation applied nowadays, mostly bring out some other essential roles including aesthetic expression…
Cultural Ornament contributes to the contemporaneity of the city and the diversity of culture much like an advertisement board, or a tattoo, not primarily as an element of utility but as an intense medium of impression, expression, and representation. It gives a continuity to the history of the styles it imitates, spreading the unique of the culture itself to the publics.
Muzium Negara which brings out the identity of vernacular style of Malay house
Economic In parallel, ornament in contemporary architecture contributes to image-making, commercial success, and marketing strategy, as much as it becomes a designedly instrument of achieving astonishment. The need for commercial success and a profitable image of the building unfolds the connection of ornament and capitalism.
Environmental Ornamentation in contemporary architecture nowadays is parallel with the environmental issues around the building itself. Ornamentation including glazing and shadow devices such as louvers might be applied on the facade of the building depends on the direction of the sunrise and the wind blow. Thus site analysis should be carried out to find out the site condition following by the good views and bad views around the building to indicate the location of the ornaments for human comfort.
Artistic Contemporary culture is represented by the accumulation of spectacles, which mediates the social relation among people. In this sense, spectacle refers to consuming products for their sign values, such as appearance, fame, and public attention, rather than their use values. Following the twentieth-century views, the influence of visual increases in contemporary age. The criticism of spectacle in current architectural domain consists of immaterial aspects of image, including flow, density, frequency, pixel, resolution, colour, channel, bit, and frame. Ornamental buildings become embodiment of consumption, exhibition, and public attention.
In the Bird’s Nest, load-bearing elements merge with non-load-bearing ones, and work seamlessly as a single and intrinsic element. Blurring the strict borders of structure and ornament, the contemporary application of structural ornament emerges as a hybrid element. The dominating paradigm of visual turns bodily presence into spectacle, media, and image, and links the spectacle to the social demand of astonishment and amazement.
Technological Ornament in contemporary architecture acts as an elaborate medium of consumption and production by means of new tools, methods, and techniques. The integration of CAD and CAM introduces the concepts of scripture, deformation, distortion, evolution, formation, mutation, generation, transformation, and variation. The advanced technology allows contemporary architects to define ornament according to their own design approaches. It enables the intention to demonstrate their virtuosity in designing and producing surface effects.
In the case of the Ravensbourne College in Greenwich, UK, built in 2010 by the Foreign Office Architects (FOA), the intention was to express the novelty of fabrication technology. The monolithic building is covered with 28,000 aluminium tiles in different sizes and colours, which produce unique combinations on the facades around doors and windows. Blurring the building scale, dazzling tessellations create a visual play, and produce affects and sensations.
In conclusion, the future argument on ornamentation might be the way of delivering thinking through ornamentation, whether it’s just being copied and applied on buildings; or modified and applied in a modern way known as international style. It is to make both local and foreign people to appreciate the ornamental buildings, yet still can bring out the identity of the culture of the country itself.
