2012 SOM Prize for Architecture, Design, and Urban Design
Ornament: Aesthetic Inquiry

What attracts me in architecture is its multisensory nature. It combines all the arts and crafts into a whole and singular product. It deals with a three-dimensional sculptural world, pictorial nature of painting, space and time of music, and movement of dance. My travel was directed at researching this variety of faces that architecture takes. I found that there is no right or wrong in architecture. If it can be called architecture, it has to be great. I am interested in aesthetics as I believe it is no less important than the functional integrity of a building. What is a point of a building if there is no pleasure from seeing it or interacting with it? A cave would be sufficient enough for living, but even in caves humanity had its artistry. When the physical needs are satisfied we seek for art in its true sense not as a commodity but as an expression of the inner drive for artistic order.

The purpose of my trip was clarification of what is good architecture, as general as it sounds. I wanted to understand and experience true architecture that inspires and lures. See it, touch it as it is, be there. My initial research intentions were naive and infirm as I read it now. What I wanted to research was what exactly makes a building a piece of architecture, a work of art. I have an argument with myself whether architecture is closer to nature, a metaphorical “cave,” or if it’s heading toward becoming a “machine” that is somewhat contradictory to nature, but, perhaps, not to the nature of humans. During my travels, I paid attention to the surface of a building fabric looking into what is called ornament, its nature, its relation to the human perception, and its communicative capacity. But of course, my other subjective inclinations played not the last part, as my interest in scale, which are seen this report.

More and more I believe that aesthetics play a role of an interface between a building and observer. Ornament is one of the best tools for such interaction, not the only one of course, but the most effective. Features that we notice in a building and the ones we touch are ornamental in the sense that they communicate a meaning to us, show a certain concern, or lack of it, something we can relate to and interact with, something that ornaments our life. I looked into three aspects of ornament: the perception of ornament, its meaning, and its making.

For my itinerary I limited myself to Europe so I could have a more comprehensive inquiry into the development of architectural aesthetics in one varied but singular culture, to see the unified outcome of the European culture, to slice through its history and the present. Secondly, to a certain degree I sought to reaffirm my identity, since I have not traveled Europe and grew up somewhere in-between Russian and European cultures. With my backpack, The Sense of Order by E. H. Gombrich, and the stoicism of Seneca, I traveled Europe for seven and a half months in total. This book provides a reflection on my findings and impressions.