The Function of OrnamentFARSHID MOUSSAVI and MICHAEL KUBO, editors

Harvard University Graduate School of Design andActar, 2006190 pages, illustrated$29.95 (paper)

Perhaps you have noticedornament is back. Notkitsch classicism or postmodern heraldry but geo-metric patterns etched into facades, punched intorainscreens, and tessellated on tiled walls. Repetitiveor self-similar patterns are modeled in 3D software,then output through lasers, waterjets, robotic

assembly arms, and CNC mills, or sometimes con-structed through conventional means.

What is the meaning of these patterns? Howcan I make them? If you have been asking thesequestions, you have probably noticed The Functionof Ornament, a handbook for architects and studentsseeking to use and understand this new ornamentalwork. An essay by Farshid Moussavi prefaces forty-two case studies drawn primarily from contemporaryarchitecture and analyzed by students in a studioMoussavi taught at Harvards Graduate School ofDesign. Each project is documented in a pair oftwo-page spreads, the first a close-up elevation orperspective and the second filled with annotateddiagrams and details including a sectional perspec-tive. Sorted according to whether they consist ofform, structure, screen, or surface, and further bywhat materials they employ and what effects theyproduce, the case studies are presented as species ina taxonomy of affective architecture.

The result is a handy primer on recent proj-ects like the de Young Museum by Herzog & deMeuron or the John Lewis Department Store byForeign Office Architects, the firm Moussavi headswith Alejandro Zaera-Polo. The work of gatheringdocumentation of all these buildings in one conve-nient place is valuable since there is no other singlesource that so broadly covers the new phenomenonof patterned facades. While the sectional perspec-tives do not always contain enough detail for us tounderstand precisely how these buildings cometogether, some are detailed enough to be of real useto students in advanced building systems courses anddesign studios.

Less successful are the close-ups, which rarelyconvey anything not found in the sectional per-spectives. Instead, they establish a rhythm thatallows readers to oscillate between close study andbrowsing. This choice reflects Moussavis interpre-tive intentions: that these recent pattern projectsrepresent a renewed abstraction in which ornamentengages individuals, cities, and culture throughaffective means. Moussavi characterizes ornament

75 reviews | documents 1 events

as the means by which architects today producesensations and affects, in contrast to such priorarchitectural modalities as modernist transparencyand postmodernist signification. By stimulatingnew forms of experience, she asserts, affectiveornament allows architecture to constantly engagethe city in new ways and to remain convergentwith culture.

Affect can refer to a mental state, an emotion,or a mood, and affects can range from the mild, suchas the ennui we feel near the end of a long trip, to theextreme, such as the bodily recoil provoked by rottenfood. The prominence of affect indicates the editorsdesire to reconceptualize architecture in termsderived from the philosophical work of Deleuze andGuattari, who characterized the artwork as a reconfi-guration of material to produce a compound ofpercepts and affects breaking free of signification.The problem is that when Moussavi says affect,she seems to mean simply effect.

Take the example of 30 St. Mary Axe, the officetower Foster & Partners designed for reinsurancecompany Swiss Re. Moussavi categorizes this build-ing as a form that uses construction to create a spiralaffect. But in what sense of the term is spiral anaffect? And how does the buildings spiralness help itengage the city or culture? There are richer percep-tual and emotional resonances in this building, pop-ularly known as the erotic gherkin, than thoseevoked by the spiral pattern of its glazing. Diagramscapturing the shape and facxade pattern of the towershow how its spiraling atriums channel airflow, butthey strip the building of attributes important to itscultural and urbanistic significance, such as the dis-tinctive visual relationships its atriums createbetween the interior and the city.

To talk about the buildings relation to culture,we could start with its technocratic roots in theecological design practice of Buckminster Fuller, oneof Fosters mentors. Or we could focus on the factthat the building occupies a site cleared by an IrishRepublican Army bombing and so symbolizes the roleSwiss Re played in implementing a new system of

counterterrorism insurance. If you worked inLondons financial district and walked past thisbuilding on a daily basis, would not its combinationof standoff, structural heroics, transparency, andgeometric purity send a chill down your spine as youfelt vibrating through your body the play of anxietyand confidence it inspires? Moussavis approachobscures the buildings relation to culture and thecity and even to architectures affective capacities.

There are other instances where the limits ofMoussavis method become especially clear, such asthe Prada Aoyama Epicenter, the Atrium at Federa-tion Square, Eberswalde Technical Institute Libraryeven the Lewis Store, which relies for effect on thecounterpoint between arabesques in mirrored glassand ceramic frit, and so uses perceptual sizzle to setup a semiotic payoff. The Function of Ornament isnot a taxonomy of affects but a catalogue of visualeffects stripped of their emotional power.The book isa great point of entry to a compelling territory ofcontemporary architectural production, and it willhelp you detail the rainscreen on your next project.But it deflects attention from what is essential inthese innovative buildings, banalizing affect whileobscuring architectures rich array of urban, cultural,and emotional impacts.

Jonathan Massey

reviews | documents 1 events 76