Short description
A graphic guide to ornaments in the 20th century, this work unveils the function of ornament as the agent for specific effects, dismantling the idea that ornament is applied to buildings as a discrete or nonessential entity.
Long description
Architecture needs mechanisms that allow it to become connected to culture. It achieves this by continually capturing the forces that shape society. This book is a graphic guide to ornaments in the twentieth century. It unveils the function of ornament as the agent for specific affects, dismantling the idea that ornament is applied to buildings as a discrete or non-essential entity. Each case exploits specific synergies between the exterior and the interior, constructing an internal order between ornament and material. These internal orders produce expressions that are contemporary, yet whose affects are resilient in time. Initiated as a seminar at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Farshid Moussavi is a partner in leading London-based firm Foreign Office Architects.
Review
A primer for the digital age, with Foreign Office Architects' Farshid Moussavi demonstrating how the computer is as fine a form generator as any pattern book. -- Wallpaper Magazine