Product Description

Architecture needs mechanisms that allow it to become connected to culture. It achieves this by continually capturing the forces that shape society as material to work with. Architecture's materiality is therefore a composite one, made up of visible forces (structural, functional, physical) as well as invisible forces (cultural, political, temporal). Architecture progresses through new concepts that connect with these forces, manifesting itself in new aesthetic compositions and affects. Ornament is the by-product of this process, through which architectural material is organized to transmit unique affects. This book is a graphic guide to ornaments in the twentieth century. It unveils the function of ornament as the agent for specific affects, dismantling the idea that ornament is applied to buildings as a discrete or non-essential entity. Each case operates through greater or lesser depth to exploit specific synergies between the exterior and the interior, constructing an internal order between ornament and material. These internal orders produce expressions that are contemporary, yet whose affects are resilient in time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55152 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-15
• Released on: 2006-02-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9788496540507
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
A thoroughly and beautifully illustrated book that gives a broad overview of the various affects achieved by mostly contemporary buildings. --Archidose

A thoroughly and beautifully illustrated book that gives a broad overview of the various affects achieved by mostly contemporary buildings. --Archidose

The impressive array of diagrams are extremely clear and useful... If you are looking for component and systems analysis of projects such as Future Systems' amorphous Selfridges Department Store or Herzog and de Meuron's embossed copper skin at the De Young Museum; look no further. --Death By Architecture

This book represents a return to architectural research as drawing. If it's a harbinger for 2007, I'm excited to see what else Actar and whoever else dares to draw can come up with. --Archinect

The Function of Ornament is a primer for the digital age, with Foreign Office Architects Farshid Moussavi demonstrating how the computer is as fine a form generator as any pattern book. --Wallpaper Magazine

-- A remarkable array of forms. --Metropolis Magazine

Undeniably powerful. -- Architect's Journal

A compelling study of affect manifest in clearly presented case studies with savy representations of various architectural techniques. --Documents

The impressive array of diagrams are extremely clear and useful... If you are looking for component and systems analysis of projects such as Future Systems' amorphous Selfridges Department Store or Herzog and de Meuron's embossed copper skin at the De Young Museum; look no further. --Death By Architecture

About the Author
Farshid Moussavi is Professor in Practice in the Department of Architecture, Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Her London-based firm, Foreign Office Architects (FOA), is recognized as one of the most creative design firms in the world, deftly integrating architecture, urban design, and landscape architecture in their projects. They have produced numerous critically-acclaimed and award-winning international projects, most notably the Yokohama Ferry Terminal in Japan. Prior to establishing Foreign Office Architects (with Alejandro Zaera Polo) in London in 1992, she worked with the Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Genoa and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Rotterdam. Michael Kubo is Teaching Associate in Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and the US Director of ACTAR. He graduated with an M.Arch from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and with a B.A. in Architecture from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. With ACTAR, he is the editor of Desert America: Territory of Paradox (2006), Verb Conditioning (2005), Seattle Public Library (2005), Verb Connection and Verb Matters (2004), Phylogenesis: FOA's Ark (2003), and The Yokohama Project (2002). He previously collaborated with Rem Koolhaas and OMA / AMO as Associate Editor for the Harvard Guide to Shopping (2001), Great Leap Forward (2001), and Mutations (2000).

Customer Reviews

Nice presentation of some innovative architectural systems
In this graphic guide to building ornamentation in the twentieth century, Moussavi and Kubo have collected an interesting cross-section of architectural projects that demonstrate the mechanisms through which contemporary architecture connects itself to current culture.

Through the selected case study projects, the editors endeavor to illustrate the means through which ornamentation is the very essence of the building. Not being merely 'ornamental' and self-indulgent, the articulation presented is indeed the agent of the architect's ideas.

Various materials and effects are investigated ranging from 'dematerialized light' to 'relief patterns'. The impressive array of diagrams are extremely clear and useful. A typical system is defined through perspective views, sections, pattern diagrams, detailed assembly drawings and relevant notes.

If you are looking for component and systems analysis of projects such as Future Systems' amorphous Selfridges Department Store or Herzog and de Meuron's embossed copper skin at the De Young Museum; look no further.

Excellent and Elegant
This is not a technical manual as a couple reviewers seems to wish, nor a survey of ornament in architecture. Nor does it ever claim to be such--reviewers should review a book not wish it was a different book. Instead it represents the results of graduate level research at Harvard Graduate School of Design into a revitalized understanding of the role of ornament in architecture and how one employs technical and material means to produce architecture effects and phenomena. As such the book is extremely clear, useful and elegantly designed and thoughtfully organized. Great for students and professional who want to think.

Great Case Studies
Beautiful and useful; as a Professor of Architecture I will be recommending this volume to all of my students.