The Challenging Journey of Ornament Over the History

The concept of ornament has occurred because of the existence of the human and its relation to its setting. Ornament of things, which aim at adding qualitative structures to objects beside their quantitative statuses, is a truth that is as old as humanity. In this process of the people, efforts in designing, thinking, communicating, creating, one relates to ornament in every field of design, from small things to urban planning. Negotiations mainly on architectural ornament has been popular in every era. Since the time of Vitruvius who established the platform for conceptual discussion of architecture, ornament, owing to its psychological and social functions, has more or less continuously been a main topic for discussion. Ornament, whose function-meaning and/or form go by way of changes following ages, in the context of architecture, where it goes to the peak level of artistic communication language, located in the core these discussions. The aim of this paper is to re-evaluate architecture-ornament relation in history and to re-discuss it by drawing attention to the most controversial climaxes of former architectural perspective.

Keywords:

Ornament , Architecture , Function , art