beyond the Canon

Text: Zsolt Gunther

If we talk about ornamentation beyond the canon, we must also address the canonization of decoration. The foundations of this were laid by the architectural theorists of antiquity and the Renaissance. Vitruvius’ ten books, Alberti’s ten books, and Palladio’s four books all contribute to this foundation. Gottfried Semper, and some earlier thinkers on architecture like Laugier, were fascinated by the ancient. His so-called Bekleidungstheorie or the theory of dressing traces back to the woven structure of the tent wall. With this, he dug the grave of both his own and the historicism he so favored. With the decline of historical styles, modern architecture abandoned the use of decoration. Were homogeneous surfaces sufficient to express the essential message of architecture, the articulation of space? It seems not, as the two main attributes of historical architecture – the ornament and the varied spatial closure – continuously demanded their place within the so-called second modernity. Moreover, over the past 50 years, several attempts have been made to rehabilitate decoration. Postmodern decorative elements first showed the necessity of the unity of architecture and ornamentation. It is no coincidence that postmodernism, as a neo-avant-garde movement and also a didactic ornament, has reappeared among us today. There is another path that seeks the place of decoration in architecture by following the symbols of our time and their abstract representations. This approach is closer to the logic of modernism.