Go BackOrnament and Function as Products of Unfolding
Ornament arises as part of the design process, when a person is making and seeks to embellish this "something" while making it. It arises as a result of the latent centers in the uncompleted thing requiring still more centers, requiring still more structure, in order to be complete.
The ornamental structure most often comes from the material, and from the way a thing is being made. Ornaments in wood, have different form and structure from ornaments in cast concrete, or in shot concrete. Brick patterns create fine structure, as colored patterns on hand-glazed tilework.
Ornament is not something which is imposed to finish things off. It is, in itself, of the essence. It is an essential part of the design process, connected to the shaping and geometry of its structural components, introducing centers in a range of scales.
Furthermore, the function of a thing, and its ornament, are not two separable features: they are inseparable. When a thing is well made, then this thing is always at once practical and at the same time an ornament.
Thoughts and Arguments Explored and Developed
Ornament as detail emerges directly from the making process
Making lifelike animals and plants in the fabric of buildings
Simplicity of ornamental human figures
The joy of building is that, in a profound sense, I feel the whole building as an ornament –whose rooms, passages, staircases, windows, ceilings, paving, benches lamps, are all extensions of that ornament
References
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The Linz Café, Das Linz Café
1981
“The Linz Café”, a bilingual book, both in German and English, is the fourth in “The Center for Environmental Structure Series” on architecture published by Oxford University Press. The book describes the application of the theory to a single building commissioned by ...
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The Nature of Order - An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe.
Book One - The Phenomenon of Life
2002
“The Phenomenon of Life”, the first volume of “The Nature of Order” series proposes a scientific view of the world in which all space-matter has perceptible degrees of life and sets this understanding of order as an intellectual basis for ...
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The Nature of Order - An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe.
Book Three - A Vision of a Living World
2005
“A Vision of a Living World”, the third volume of “The Nature of Order” series, presents, for the first time, a full spectrum of Alexander’s and CES built and unbuilt works. The book describes hundreds of buildings, plans, neighborhoods, drawings, ...
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Etna Street Cottage
1974
Experimental building project, two-story 400 sq. ft. cottage, with a hollow wooden structure filled with concrete and featherweight concrete vaults. Completed in ten weeks, without a building permit at the back of the C.E.S. office on Etna Street, and was ...
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C.E.S. Office - Martinez House
1977 to
1984
The second building completed on the Martinez site, was a 2,000 square feet house. A gunite all-concrete building as well, it was the first sizable and fully functional project in which C.E.S. used gunite, while applying all permit and specification ...
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Linz Café
1980
Built as part of the international exposition "Forum Design" and designed to be "portable". Wooden building overlooking the Danube, with the first floor of the building raised to clear the ten-foot-high river embarkment. Yellow and red exterior, three stories, 2,300 ...
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Etna Street Cottage: Ornament in door frame
1974
S's cut with jig-saw after being drawn on one-inch planks; then filled with plaster.
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Linz Café: Hand-painted walls with flowers as ornament
1980
Exterior walls painted yellow with some white and a touch of orange to light the orange of the canopy; hand-painted interior walls in green, apricot, yellow, red and green, with ornamental frieze and white flowers on the walls painted by ...
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Berryessa Terraced House: Multicolored blue diamond shaped tiles
1981
Thirty five diamond shaped porcelain tile fragments; hand drawn and painted, set into the foundation perimeter wall of the main house volume.
SEE ALL Construction Innovations
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The Role and Use of Color in Ornamentation and Building Systems for Creating Wholeness in Structures
1976
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Design studio on "The Nature of Order"
1983
The focus of the studio was on the book “The Nature of Order”, at that time being a draft in one volume. Christopher Alexander distributed a xerox copy of his book manuscript to the students, for sharing with them his ...
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C.E.S. Office - Martinez House: Terrazzo floor with squares, diamonds and crosses; paper mock-up #1
01/01/1984
Full-scale paper mock-up with gouache paint, depicting the first alternative for the terrazzo floor of the main room — a geometric pattern composed by squares, diamonds and crosses, in green, red and white.
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C.E.S. Office - Martinez House: Terrazzo floor with squares, diamonds and crosses; paper mock-up #2
01/01/1984
Full-scale paper mock-up with gouache paint, depicting the second alternative for the terrazzo floor of the main room — a geometric pattern composed by grey stripes with blue crosses and white squares with a blue central detail.
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C.E.S. Office - Martinez House: Terrazzo floor with squares, diamonds and crosses; paper mock-up #3
01/01/1984
Full-scale paper mock-up with gouache paint, depicting the third alternative for the terrazzo floor of the main room — a geometric pattern composed by interlaced red and yellow crosses with a small blue square detail inside the red crosses.
SEE ALL Models & Mock-ups
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Lecture on "The Nature of Order", given during Fall 1992
25/10/1992
2-sided cassette tape of the third Fall semester lecture by Christopher Alexander, focuses on the Upham house and the detailed steps taken from the beginning of his discussions with the family and throughout the whole project. This lecture tries to ...
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Lecture at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
27/10/1982
Audio recording of the lecture Christopher Alexander gave at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University.
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Sala House: Sketches
2 2) South elevation
01/01/1982
Four free-hand pencil sketches of elevation studies for two sides of the house volume, with details and ornamentation.
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Sala House: Kitchen terrazzo floor - Presentation Drawings
01/01/1982
Drawing showing the final pattern of interlocked dark grey stars and light green crosses, used for the construction of the floor.
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Sala House: Kitchen terrazzo floor - Sketches of floor patterns
2 2nd page of sketches
01/01/1982
Two pages of initial pencil sketches for the kitchen terrazzo floor patterns.
SEE ALL Drawings
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West Dean College Gardens Visitor's Center - Hand-made Tilework: Sketches & notes on tile glazes
05/07/1996
Four sketches with notes of the two tile patterns for which four versions of color combinations and distribution are proposed by the specified glaze codes.
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Lecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design: Transcript of lecture
17/11/1982
19-page transcript of the Christopher Alexander lecture on “Architecture’s New Scientific Foundations”, a kind of progress report on the development of his ideas on the order of space as a deep phenomenon, on the importance of recognizing the deep structure ...
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The Linz Café: Photographs of building interior
01/01/1980
Three photographs of the café interior, focusing on the café alcoves and the hand painted walls with its ornaments.
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The Linz Café: Photographs of building interior
01/01/1980
View of the first floor sitting alcoves of the Linz Café. The photo was exhibited during the 10th Annual Louis Kahn Memorial Lecture in 1992, where Christopher Alexander was invited to give a lecture.
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C.E.S. Office - Martinez House: Photographs of the building
01/01/1984
Black and white photograph of the building exterior, from its back side.
SEE ALL Photographs
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Towards a Theory of Units
01/01/1975
267-page thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture. The subject of this study deals with the concept of organicness in relation to architecture, and with, which would be the acts that could ...
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Concrete Casting - Construction of Capital and Column
12/12/1986
15-page paper describing the steps taken towards the making of a precast column and ornamental capital, for the first floor arcade of the residence building, in the San Jose Shelter for the Homeless project. Included are numerous photographs illustrating the ...