The Importance Of Ornament In Architecture
A building is not architecture. In order to become architecture, it must undergo the process of ornamentation. The result of this process is "ornament" - "A way to make something look more attractive and less plain." Ornamentation in architecture has been of great importance. In the first century A.D., Vitruvius considered ornament as an essential part of architecture. Leon Battista Alberti, considered the father of architectural profession, devoted four books on architecture to ornament, which he considered the most necessary attribute. In the following years, ornament grew well both in theory and practice. In the twentieth century, ornament has been considered to be offensive to architecture. In this paper, I will be discussing the language …show more content…
Alberti, in his On the Art of Building in Ten Books was the first translation of Vitruvius in the Renaissance. It had a great influence on the arts in the Renaissance, considering ornament as something additional: "ornament may be defined as a form of auxiliary light and complement to beauty. From this it follows, I believe, that beauty is some inherit property, to be suffused all through the body of that which may be called beautiful; whereas ornament, rather than being inherent, has the character of something attached or additional." On the other hand, Palladio being the last and the greatest of the Renaissance theorists, achieved his reputation because of the clarity with which he presented in his Four Books of Architecture. Palladio differs from both Vitruvius and Alberti which reflects the change in the role of the architect during the sixteenth century. The selection of ornament to create the beauty of a building becomes the central concern of the architect. Like Alberti and Vitruvius, Palladio defines beauty as a resultant of agreement of the parts themselves and with the whole, which leads to a consideration of the proportions most pleasing for all the parts of a building. Palladio's focus on discussing beauty falls equally on the ornamentation. This shift from Alberti's distinction between beauty and ornament reflects a shift in Renaissance architectural practice to a greater complexity of detail, clearly seen in Palladio's work. Palladio in Book IV offers a justification of both ornament and harmony in
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