Re-Sampling Ornament, Basel

The role of ornament in architecture throws up some tricky questions. Should form simply follow function or should aesthetic considerations drive design? Of course architectural styles over the centuries have varied markedly along the form-function spectrum and decoration or ornament in architecture is one of the areas which characterises certain periods.

Click here to see some pictures of the buildings.

Re-Sampling Ornament, a new show at the Swiss Architecture Museum in Basel, takes a revealing look at the historical status of ornament in architecture through a range of buildings and their historical, or natural references. The exhibition charts how many contemporary buildings have what might appear to be radical façades, but actually have inspiration rooted in very traditional references. For example OMA's façade of the McCormick Tribune Campus Center in Chicago imprinted with a coloured portrait of Mies van der Rohe (ironic, perhaps, given the architect’s preference for stylistic austerity), which took inspiration from the carvings adorning the 13th-century Rouen Cathedral in France.

In both cases, the decoration is certainly not functional in an architectural sense. Neither sculpture nor portrait are structurally essential. But they are both more than merely decorative, communicating as they do the nature of the buildings and what goes on inside.

The boundary between art and architecture is fundamentally blurred and physical structures rarely exist for the sake of form alone. Vast urban landscapes provide a compelling canvas for artists, architects and designers, and help give our generation its aesthetic voice. Like the hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians, the ornate flourishes of medieval gothic builders, and even the austerity of 20th century Bauhaus, how our buildings look say as much about our time as what they do. Ornament, in other words, isn’t just decoration.

3 June 2008 | Architecture