NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/alt/architec/213

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-07 | 3.5 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Randolph Fritz)
Newsgroups: alt.architecture
Subject: Re: automotive design and architecture
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 6 Nov 92 03:33:26 GMT
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In-reply-to: [e-mail]'s message of Sun, 1 Nov 1992 19:24:00 GMT

. . . wow did I misread you!  & answered in a too-condensed style as
well.  Too much thinking about this in isolation, I guess.  The
sentence which you didn't understand was the key point of the post.
Well, to restate and expand--

One of the best places to go to find out what people like, as opposed
to what architects and designers like, is to look at what people
design for themselves when they get the chance.  Custom cars are
usually ornamented.  "Vernacular" architecture (how I hate that
condescending phrase!) usually is.  Ornament is still popular, despite
half a century of modernism.

All architecture (and all art) is expressed in form, regardless of
whether it is representational or abstract, simple Euclidean solids or
tree fronds.

When people are given their choices in forms, they mostly seem to
prefer complexity of a particular sort, what artists often call
"life," (not the same thing as Wright's "organic form," I think.)
Complexity on many levels of scale is part of this.  Natural
objects achieve this quality by repeated small changes; by the
operation of physical process over time.  Most of Mandelbrot's
fractals achieve a similar quality by repeated small changes.  (*The
 Fractal Geometry of Nature* is an excellent place to look for design
ideas, by the way--you can go crazy drawing the things manually,
though!)  Generally, I'd say the same complexity is a necessity of
aesthetically satisfying architecture.  It is also common in visual
art, though it is less of a necessity.

Equally, though, architecture needs to be *ordered* complexity, which
natural objects are not.  Rocks can be beautiful, but rocks are not
art.  I believe that for art to be be successful, it must communicate
something about the emotional relationship of artist and viewer to the
world.  The purely natural object does not communicate; there is no
artist.

That's my theoretical answer to, "why ornament?"

My difficulties with Victorian ornament stem from these sources:

1. It was the architecture of the British Empire--hence it borrows
   from Moorish, or Roman, or Greek, or Japanese, Indian or Egyptian.
   It was never English or American in its basic elements.  In my view
   this displays a failure of creativity.

2. It was ostentatious.  Part of the reason for the extensive
   ornamentation was to show off the owner's wealth.

3. I find it, at the same time, mostly lacking in boldness--public
   buildings excepted.  Dramatic form was unusual for the period.

4. I find most Victorian home interiors, decorated to period, to feel
   constraining, closed, claustrophobic.  Even the frilliest modern
   designer would not decorate in that way.  I find most Victorian
   public interiors to be intimidating by design-- stereotypically
   stuffy.

So--I agree with you about ornament, disagree about the Victorians.
Ok?

__Randolph Fritz  sun!cognito.ebay!randolph || [e-mail]