Surface value: Can surface ornamentation be meaningful and powerful or is it superficial?
Is ornament still looked down upon in architecture and design or can ornamentation of surfaces be valuable? Can surfaces teach us or shift attitudes? Can it link us to the past, present and inspire the future? Can it tell us about our culture, the place, and its people? We know that surface decoration can be superficial but by understanding the indigenous feelings towards decoration, we can also see it can also be meaningful, powerful, and connect the community.
Richly decorated surfaces at the Alcazar in Seville, Spain creating identity and a sense of place.
The colonial view of decoration
The most famous argument against decoration applied to surfaces was by Adolf Loos, who stated ornamentation hides reality and is “a crime” (Loos, 1908). Very harsh words indeed. You may be thinking that was a long time ago, but the ripples of this echo through the pervasive model of 20th-century design education. His “Ornament and Crime” manifesto urged designers towards a surface free of applied expression and this has been a mantra of many designers ever since.
Loos somewhat rightfully argued that ornamentation of surfaces had the effect of causing objects to lose their appeal when they go out of style. This is largely true in the modern world of ever-changing fashions driven by capitalism, where ornamentation is stylistic. It is universally agreed I think that there is a simple honesty in the lack of ornament, by celebrating the material quality as it is, and that is a valuable lesson from that period. The natural material never really dates and is almost always beautiful and relatable as it is ‘natural’. It connects us to the textures and surfaces of the real world and is often still evident with slight manipulation through production.
But in many indigenous cultures, ornamentation is unrelated to Western notions of ‘style’, it is in fact deeply meaningful, connected to all living things, and often a record of wisdom about land and cultural practices. Carvings on canoes, tools, skin and useful objects were not meaningless but important in keeping stories alive. Decoration was signifiers for example of groupings and cultural practices deeply embedded in spirituality, place, and community. When using decorative surfaces, such as architectural or clothing materials, to project one’s identity or status, the possessor can be seen differently by others. It is as if the object’s surface creates another skin overlaid or projected onto the possessor to express identity, group belonging, place, and time which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Loos and his contemporaries failed to understand the deep meaning that was the basis of indigenous markings, art, and ornament, and similarly, the value of surface meaning in a colonized curriculum was not taught for many decades. Loos believed that the “evolution of culture marches with the elimination of ornament from useful objects”. What is most important here is that he sees the Western approach to aesthetics and ornamentation as a practice that was ‘leading’, and indigenous cultures and their use of surface decoration as ‘behind’. Loos also talked about decoration or ornament as “immoral” and even “degenerate” stemming from a deeply entrenched colonial perspective.
Within the 20th century capitalist mantra of selling more via rapidly changing fashion and the marketing message of needing to ‘keep up’, fashionable styles don’t seem very truthful or valuable. They are born of the premise of making people feel behind and needing to purchase more to stay up to date with the new- through stylistic and fashionable changes. Institutionalized cultures tend to see being and truth as deep inside, emerging from a colonial view of what you are born into, and combined with stylistic changes that have no deep meaning, the surface becomes a temporary fad that dates, it is viewed as the ‘superficial’, and is synonymous with fakery and lies.
The undecorated surfaces at the influential Bauhaus building, Germany., designed by Walter Gropius., 1925.
An alternative view of the surface
We know now that not all ornament is bad, in fact, quite the opposite. Ornament can connect us to place, time and other people. Ornament can make us value the craftsmanship in the making, and thereby encourage us to care for the object over time. Caring for things, in a way that results in less consumption and less waste is, in our current age, the moral choice. From this perspective, ornamentation is hardly immoral.
Perhaps the most valuable takeaway from Adolf Loo’s ideas (that has some humanity in there), was the call for fair pay for workers. He discusses how at that time, the highly ornamented object and the modern often cost similarly resulting in “the criminally low wages paid to the embroideress and lacemaker” as well as other craftspeople. So, while his view and argument for better pay for workers are valid to this day, his notions about decoration as the source of the problem, lacks an understanding of meaningful and useful decoration. The better forms of decoration can bring understanding, meaningful messaging, connection to place, kin, and history. It can inspire change be political and raise awareness.
The power of decoration that reflects culture and contains a powerful community message. Black Lives Matter mural in Palo Alto by 16 artists, 2020.
Social anthropologist, Daniel Miller explains that the surface, the exterior, and people’s conscious choices are considered the real truth by other cultures emerging from slavery, such as the Trinidadians. Free choices such as what is said, how they walk, their use of make-up and clothing, and their buildings, actually better reflects someone because it shows the actions and efforts they have undertaken to construct themselves. Who they are is not what they were born into. Instead, who they are is signified by the choices they make. What is true is what they ‘become’.
This view is the direct opposite of the colonial viewpoint. The exterior surface, ornamentation, and ‘dressing’ of the person or object as expressing the most honest version of reality; because that which is exposed and visible is what is ‘kept honest’ (Miller, 2010).
“And where is the obvious place to hide things? Well, deep inside where other people can’t see them… For Trinidadians, it is entirely obvious that truth resides on the surface where other people can easily see it and attest to it, while lies are to be found in the hidden recesses deep within. A person’s real being, then, is also on the surface, and evident. The deep person, who keeps things stored close to himself or herself and out of view, is viewed as just dishonest.” (Miller, 2010. Stuff, p. 28)
Surface ornament in design
Architectural interiors and exteriors are frequently used in western culture as a medium to show off one’s values, possessions, or social status; and of course, to, ‘keep up with Joneses’. The object’s surface is like a projection over the subject, masking reality. This display which is presented to others can be anything, and in Western culture is likely to be assumed as contrived, controlled, and manufactured; not the real truth.
But surfaces can link to identity, individuality, and the setting oneself apart from others, or conversely as being part of a group, social, intellectual, or otherwise. Ornamentation, decoration, and surface types have done this for centuries. Surfaces mediate and intervene in our initial viewing of the object. Surfaces can conceal the truth or reveal our choices and values.
Traditional quilt making is a particularly rich example of how the decorated surface can act like a storytelling device that is stitched, quite literally, with illustrations, words, and stories of kinship, values, history, and imagined futures. This surface once stitched together can provide a personal or mnemonic experience that can render the personally meaningful and embedded with hours of making by a loved one. The object becomes one to be cared for, retained, and bequeathed due to its narrative and making process.
‘The Unforgotten’ cabinet is an experimental yet functional furniture piece that challenges the western notion of surface honesty. It reflects quilt making and my design philosophy to initiate and embed the opportunity for a long-term attachment or designed endearment to objects for the end-user. ‘The Unforgotten’ evokes a quilt-like form to the front and sides of the timber cabinetwork, with facets custom laser engraved with representations reflecting meaningful family possessions, stories, events, and places; it is a collage of memory. Similarly, ‘From the Skies’ is essentially a decorated surface that folds into a three-dimensional form inside the Perth International Terminal that reveals various aspects of the indigenous and non-indigenous qualities of the site.
If surfaces of objects can therefore form a contemplative surface, one rich with meaning, history, and memory. In this way, the surface is hardly superficially meaningless in a western view, but can, in fact, render the objects to be deeply meaningful heirlooms.
By taking this approach to architectural surfaces we can reveal aspects of place, history, indigenous stories or inspire a vision for the future that can become embedded in the community. In these approaches to the surface, the focus relies on the person-to-person relationship with the surface intervening as a communicator bringing people together with a common understanding by telling a story, or communicating a message.