Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are also the
most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance
–John Ruskin. 1
Introduction
In the early 1900s, the high tide of art nouveau, Adolf Loos stated in
his essay ornament and crime: “The evolution of culture marches with
the elimination of ornament from utilitarian objects” 2 . Adding
ornamentation to buildings for him felt like an immoral thing to do,
it was a crime to force craftsmen and builders to waste their
precious time on useless objects. Are we, as architects, still moving
towards a modern, ornamentless architecture, vers une architecture?
Is it true that while our culture evolves, we are losing ornaments?
The answer to this is no, when we look nowadays around us.
Gradually more and more architects are using ornament; a good
example of this statement is the Beeld en Geluidinstituut by
Neutelings Riedijk. But in the beginning of the nineteenth century,
there seems to have been a gradual paradigm shift in thought about
the ornament after the writings of Adolf Loos. The decorative and
narrative ornament, was losing ground, and died out completely
during the high tides of modernism, because the great architectural
thinkers of those days were, completely in line with the thoughts of
Adolf Loos, removing ornaments from architectural designs, to free
the public of her individualization. 1. Beeld en Geluidinstituut
by Neutelings Riedijk
The ornament is something that, in architectural design is seen more
often last decade. But is this a revival, did it never leave our
profession, or is it only a shift in form of ornament? By comparing
two buildings from different times, we try to find out, how and in
what form the ornament did survive. The first is the Natural
History Museum by Alfred Waterhouse, build in 1881. In this
building ornamentation is used in abundance. By studying it we
concluded that the ornamentation was used for showing the
function and meaning of the building, the ornament has a narrative
function. 3 But what was the reason for this choice, and how is this
expressed in form? The Louvre surrounds the era of the National
History Museum. In 1204 Philippe-Auguste founded the Louvre
with a castle to defend Paris against the Vikings. In 1535 Pierre
1
Quote from Works, 9. p. 72 used by Aileen Reid in Ruskin and Architecture. P.279
2
From Ornament and Crime, Loos, A.
3
This information was acquired by analysing the building and basic reading.
1
Lescot designed the still existing part of the palace. From this date
on every great French ruler added his wing, until in 1876 it stopped
with the design Visconti and Hector Lefuel. The palace was first
used as a museum in 1793. Over hundred years later, in 1989, Ieoh
Ming Pei continued working on the Louvre under commission of
the French president François Mitterrand. Pei is a modernist and his
way of designing is as clean as the modernists in the line of Adolf
Loos. But we hope to find the presence of ornaments or ornamental
qualities to prove our thesis.
2. Ornament design sketch by
Waterhouse
2
practical messages. They judged architecture as a barometer of
urban society and most educated people were also trained, by books,
journals and classes, to make this judgment. The Mid-Victorian
designers found ornament, a good media to give ‘meaning’ to a
façade. Though the name of the company on the façade would have
been a simple solution, sculptural representations of the activities
were thought to be more subtle and artistic. “Narrative decoration was
considered particularly desirable on essentially new building types, giving
hospitals, public libraries or railway stations a status traditionally
regarded suitable for churches, town halls or country houses.” 7
7
The Terracotta Revival, p. 14
3
in outline and grouping. It is, in short, a Victorian building and no other,
designed upon principles which have informed the great works of all time,
but adapted to the wants, using the materials and employing the methods
of the age in which we live.” 8
8
Magazine of Art, 4 (1881), 36, quoted in Alfred Waterhous by Cunningham, C.
9
Ruskin and Architecture p. 30 by Chitty, G.
10
Unpublished autobiographical memoir by Tomas Hodgkin, quoted in Alfred Waterhouse 1830 – 1905.
p.13
4
as many buildings described by Ruskin as possible. Three years
later he made a necessary pilgrimage to the new museum at Oxford.
The architects Deane and Woodward had good contact with Ruskin
and the building was, after the pleas of Ruskin, build in a Gothic
style. 11
11
Alfred Waterhouse 1830 – 1905 p.17
12
Works, 8, p10-11, quoted in Ruskin and Architecture p.323
5
Le Grand Louvre et les Ornament
Even though there might have been already something sixth or
seventh century in the area called the Louvre, may it be a hunting
lodge or a small castle, builders under command of Philippe-
Auguste started with the fundaments of the Old Louvre, a fortified
tower, in 1204. Accept for a huge and brilliant weathercock, no
ornaments were to be found in this building. An enormous west
wing and immense hall were added by his grandson, and for almost
hundred and fifty years the Louvre was left in that condition.
Charles V found his palace too much reminiscent of the Bastille, and
decided that the tower needed a serious upgrade. The walls were, 8. Model of old Louvre
the tower increased, the exterior made more graceful in line and
form, the towers given various shapes, and ll kinds of sculptured
figures put over the different stones, the whole enclosed within the
city walls and beautiful gardens laid out around the palace. All
these changes were designed by head architect Raymond du
Temple. After the death of Charles V, in 1380, the Louvre was left to
the hands of time again for another hundred years. François I,
started with the demolition of the great tower, with the thought in
mind of creating a representational palace, but he had too many
wars, oppression and intrigues on hand. So after a couple of years
the work ceased, and the Louvre was once more left to decay. In
1540, work was commenced under command of Pierre Lescot. The
fundaments were so solid that Pierre Lescot decided to use them for
the new constructions. The fundaments are the only part remaining
of the original building, nowadays. In 1561 the new west wing was
finished and decorated with sculptures by Paolo Ponzio and Jean
Goujon. All work was stopped again after the death of Henri II,
Catherine de’ Medici wanted the Louvre to be habitable. Work on
the building was stopped, the sculptures left unfinished, and all
activity was concentrated upon the preparations for habitation. The
complex looked very strange because of the different architectural
influences. In 1610 Lemercier continued the work of Pierre Lescot,
he added extensions and destroyed the old circular stairway. In
1665 Louis XIV laid the first stone for the façade renovation, the
work was finished in 1670. Fifteen years later, in 1680, Louis was
more interested in Versailles. And when Perrault died in 1688, the
palace was once again abandoned. In 1854 the design of Visconti
was carried out and the Louvre was connected to the Tuileries in the
North. During this restoration a great deal of the old buildings were
destroyed. In general, the whole addition has, as has often been
noted; “an appearance of theatrical decoration without accent or depth, a
luxury without reason, a lack of harmony, and a manifest disproportion
between the framework and the ornamentation.”
6
”Ornament is the figure that emerges from the material substrate, the
expression of embedded forces through processes of construction, assembly
and growth. It is through the ornament that material transmits affects.
Ornament is therefore necessary and inseparable from the object. It is not a
mask determined a priori to contingent or involuntary signification (a
characteristic of al forms). It has no intention to decorate, and there is in it
no hidden meaning. At the best of times ornament becomes an “empty
sign” capable of generating an unlimited number of resonances.” 13
Looking at the interiors by Adolf Loos one would not believe that
he is the same architect that wrote “Ornament and Crime”, stating
that using the precious time of labor for ornaments and useless
decoration, was close to a criminal act. The elaborate use of
materials and the fine detailing of all the objects in the interiors, are
just as time consuming, and require the same amount of handicraft,
13
From The Function of Ornament by Moussavi, F p.8
14
From The Function of Ornament by Moussavi, F p.8
7
as the creation of ornaments. The natural decorative qualities of the
materials where cleverly used to enhance the already sophisticated
and beautifully connected interior spaces in Adolf Loos’s designs.
The same could be said about the interior of the Nouveau Louvre:
Ieoh Ming Pei uses marble, beton architectonique and other very
expensive and labor intensive process to create a very clean interior
space. The glass pyramids, the large centered pyramid in particular,
with its 603 diamond-shaped and 70 triangular glass panels of 21
millimeter on a hand-casted stainless steel construction, are very
precisely detailed, and took a lot of effort and craftsmanship by
Eiffel Construction Metallique and RFR Ingénieurs. The fine
detailing gives the whole structure a very elegant and transparent
appearance, a decorative quality on the central square. The interior
spaces of the Nouveau Louvre share the same elegance as the
pyramids outside. It could be said, that there is an ornamental
quality to be found in the details.
One should be able to see, this less-is-more way of thinking and the
fetishizing of the smooth and uniform detail, as a form of
ornamentation. References to historical architecture and technology
in the final design and the materiality of the design, become the
ornament. As Venturi notes in his book “Learning from Las Vegas”:
“Modern ornament has seldom been symbolic of anything non
architectural, since the Bauhaus vanquished Art Deco and the decorative
arts. More specifically its content is consistently spatial and
technological.” 15
Summarizing the last paragraphs, one could say, that there actually 9. The new intuitive meaning
are many ornamental qualities to this building. But most of them are of the pyramid, as an
working on a different level; it is more the emotional variant of the entrance for art museums
ornament that can be found. References to French gardens, Egyptian
pyramids could and should be seen as decorative elements in this
plan, but on the ornamental level they are more, they have acquired
15
Learning from Las Vegas Venturi, p.114
8
an aura, a deeper meaning. This emotional level is also reached by
the detailing in both the interior and the exterior. The exquisite
detailing and intelligent use of materials creates such a clean
atmosphere that it is impossible not to be astonished. Also can the
project as a whole be seen as an urban ornament; adding pyramid
shaped glass beads to the already existing building chain, linked by
the Avenue des Champs-Élysées.
Conclusion:
16
The Function of Ornament, Moussavi, F. p.6-7
17
Oase 65 Ornament, Healy, P. p.55
18
The Function of Ornament, Moussavi, F. p.6-7
9
like figures, but are not plane representations. His ornamentation
works on a different level, it works as an effect to experience his
buildings in a more organic way.
Pei does not use narrative or organic ornament, but he is looking in
his oeuvre for a way of expression that makes the experience of his
buildings unique. He finds this in the use of geometrical forms and
patterns. These geometrical forms can be seen as ornaments in a
sense that it channels the effects he wants and that they are not
formed because of functionality. The glass pyramid of the Grand
Louvre is for example an ornamental object. The form is not
functional and it is not that he only made it of glass to make it as
invisible as possible, because why did he not put every thing
underground. No, he wanted to put there an ornament which
expresses his mostly underground addition to the Louvre. So this
less tangible, but deeper and more emotional, but less or not all
narrative form, of ornamentation survived during these dark ages for
the ornament. But how did this narrative form of ornament return?
10
Bibliography
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