Aarni's personal notes on design
The Ascent of Man from 1973 has been one of my favorite tv series ever. I got a book based on that series as a matriculation gift. Browsing through the book yesterday I found an elegant proof of the Pythagoras' theorem.
On this video clip from the tv series Jacob Bronowski explains why the right angle has been so significant to our civilization. He also shows how Pythagoras may have proved his theorem using tiles and a branch of an olive tree!
Today I made a brief visit to Porvoo, a Finnish town that originates from the 13th century. King of Sweden granted it town rights in 1346. The older part of the city is charming with its old wooden houses.
The town was quite busy. I had a couple of minutes to take some photos with my iPhone.
You can read buildings like stories. That is the most important lesson I learned during my studies of architectural history. The language of the stories is comprised of symbols, structures, and layouts. The stories refer to the past but serve the present.
Renaissance architects played with history. For example they could use different columns styles on different floors. Ancient Doric columns were suitable for the ground level, Ionic for the middle story, and Corinthian at the top. This practice, however, was rediscovered from ancient Romans. The Romans in turn had played with historic Greek architecture.
A more recent example is from the 19th century neoclassical Helsinki. The two buildings on opposite sides of the Senate Square seem to be quite like each other. However, the University building has Ionic columns and the Senate building has Corinthian ones. Why? Ionic columns symbolize civilization, arts, and Apollo. The Corinthian order symbolized the power of the state.
Fortunately we got rid of the compulsive use of ancient architectural motifs. But have modern architects abandoned playing with history? Certainly not! Instead of using column orders they make references to 20th century functionalist architecture. If you know your Corbusier, Bauhaus, and Aalto, you will certainly spot quotations from the past masters. Compare the facade of the Bauhaus building from 1926 by Gropius with some more recent projects. It is not hard to see the similarities.
Photo: iStockphoto
What do fashionable wall decorations, ornamental iPod sleeves, and tattoos have in common? They are a sign of decadence and latent criminality. The famous Austrian architect Adolf Loos could have thought so!
Adolf Loos wrote his essay Ornament and Crime in 1908. That, and his other essays, had a huge impact on architecture and design for decades to come. He starts by describing the development of a human, from embryo to an eight-year-old. A child goes through the stages of the development of civilization from Papuan to Voltaire.
“A child is amoral. A Papuan too, for us. The Papuan slaughters his enemies and devours them. He is not a criminal. But if a modern person slaughters someone and devours him, he is a criminal or a degenerate. The Papuan covers his skin with tattoos, his boat, his oars, in short everything he can lay his hands on. He is no criminal. The modern person who tattoos himself is either a criminal or a degenerate. There are prisons in which eighty percent of the inmates have tattoos. People with tattoos not in prison are either latent criminals or degenerate aristocrats.”
In other words, ornament is a sign of primitiveness and thus not suitable for modern man. Loos also argues that ornaments make clothing, tableware, and furniture quickly obsolete and thus economically unsustainable.
Loos claimed that ornaments harmed their producers, the craftsmen.
“Since ornament is no longer a natural product of our culture, but a symptom of backwardness or degeneracy, the craftsman producing the ornament is not fairly rewarded for his labour. The condition among wood carvers and turners, the criminally low rates paid to embroiderers and lace makers are well-known. An ornamental craftsman has to work for twenty hours to reach the pay a modern worker earns in eight […] The result of omitting decoration is a reduction in working hours and an increase in wages.”
The original reasoning behind the disdain for decoration is probably forgotten. Modern design, however, still seems to prefer austere, clean, and unornamented things.
Quotations are from Adolf Loos, Ornament and Crime
