This paper was submitted for “Design|Media Arts 10: Design Culture, an Introduction” with Professor Erkki Huhtamo in Fall 2007. The PDF is available here.

Ornament is usually regarded as an addition that accentuates a subject. However, ornamentation goes beyond surface representation and aesthetics; its most important role is serving as a symbol to be deciphered. Adolf Loos’s Ornament and Crime is undeniably one of the most influential and controversial works regarding ornamentation in design and its impact on the Modernist movement. In his essay, he radically argues against the wasted effort in adding ornamentation, especially during the height of Art Nouveau in 1900. This way of thinking initially emerged during the Industrial Revolution with the transition from manual artisan production to mass industrial production. This led to a separation of design and machine that did not exist with artisan production. With the two concepts separate, disagreement eventually arose about the necessity of ornamentation. In Industrial Design, John Heskett explores this topic and its influence on the transition from handcrafts to mass production, man to machine, and object to designer. He neither agrees nor opposes Loos, but instead proposes that given various objects, such as a locomotive or bicycle, function may take precedence over design whereas with a streamlined car, design was necessary to promote an increase in sales and recognition. The idea of ornamentation as crime is put at odds with “form follows function” as we assign meaning and signification to ornaments through semiotics.

Continue reading »