From ornament to object
Subtitle: genealogies of architectural modernism
By: Alina Payne
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New Haven
Language: eng
Number of pages: 334
ISBN-13: 9780300175332
Subjects: DESIGN / History & Criticism; Modern Architecture; Decorative arts; ARCHITECTURE / History / Modern (late 19th Century to 1945); DESIGN / Decorative Arts; History; Themes, motives; Modernism (Aesthetics); ARCHITECTURE / Criticism
Description: "In the late 19th century, a centuries-old preference for highly ornamented architecture gave way to a budding Modernism of clean lines and unadorned surfaces. At the same moment, everyday objects--cups, saucers, chairs, and tables--began to receive critical attention.Alina Payne addresses this shift, arguing for a new understanding of the genealogy of architectural modernism: rather than the well-known story in which an absorption of technology and mass production created a radical aesthetic that broke decisively with the past, Payne argues for a more gradual shift, as the eloquence of architectural ornamentation was taken on by objects of daily use. As she demonstrates, the work of Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier should be seen as the culmination of a conversation about ornament dating as far back as the Renaissance. Payne looks beyond the usual suspects of philosophy and science to establish theoretical catalysts for the shift from ornament to object in the varied fields of anthropology and ethnology; art history and the museum; and archaeology and psychology"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.