Response to “Crime and Ornamental” by Adolf Loos

Would you consider this a crime? or just an outdated man’s creation?

Response to “Crime and Ornament, The Arts and Popular Culture in the Shadow of Adolf Loos.”

This response is almost like a “follow-up” on the last text on the international style in Tomwolfe’s “From Bauhaus to Our House” yet it is much more direct and persuasive. Loos was a good writer, there is a presence of his voices throughout the text and he was able to support his argument with strong, straight forward yet vivid and easily related to, which make us understand his point directly.

As to the content, some parts were agreeable but some that I’m going to provide arguments to his theory on “ornamental is a crime”. As much as I would prefer a simple, neutral color-working desk over a wooden carved with ornaments one, ornamentation is still, simply, ornaments. To say that, nowadays ornaments have no particular value was being narrow-minded. I’m saying this because this is not true in my culture, as a Thai person, our nation values the smallest details of crafts and overtime, this has become our identity to the rest of the world; it would be impossible to picture Thailand without our gold dusted intricate crown and our temple’s polychromatic mosaics of colored glass gleaming in the sun. His argument that these ornamentation is waste of money and time and thus preventing, “degenerate” the society can not be applied world-wide. For these ornaments, Thailand attracts tourists and provides incomes for a range of occupations. Yes, they are time consuming and laborious but we also value them for their crafts, not to mention the risen price and the pride they received.

Nevertheless, when this topic is looked at the “personal” scale, (leaving the drama about the degenerated society behinds), it is true that nowadays; household ornamented items are outdated and short-lived, aesthetically. The fixture of style of the ornaments in furniture destroyed its “flexibility” to survive in the new ever-changing twenty-first century. The world became smaller, the styles were being exchanged to the point that there’s no point in chasing a particular style, thus, simplicity was the way to go, since Corbu’s work survives (aesthetically) for decades, the style proved to be long lasted, “ever modern” to the eyes of the common man world wide, hence the name, “international style”. With simple furnishings, the objects have the flexibility that enables them to morph and blend into any other ever-changing styles of the twenty-first century world. Thus, Loos theory is right when he mentioned that an object should “lasts as long in aesthetic terms as they did physically”(p.34) and on a personal term I agree.

It was not to blame Loos for his unfitted arguments based on the context of Thailand; he lived in another time, in another world, therefore it would be impossible for him to fully understand us. His theory would applied to the “classical” and “renaissance” ornaments in Thailand, where there’s no relation to us as a nation nor that they represent any value for the country, hence the almost comical compositions appeared in some area of Bangkok. Ornaments are only worthless when they are placed in a wrong context or when they are being forcibly mass-produced.  Ornaments to me, are worthy of value when they’re containing a history, or a cultural identity. To erase, to destroy them in the name of keeping a society from “degenerating” and helping it to develop further into the future is no different from forgetting how we, as a nation, as human kind, developed here at the first place. Styles, at the end, are personal choices; some might be more “intellectual” of course, as with people. We value our freedom in society so why are we oppressing the diversity that comes along with it. 

Response to “Tom Wolfe, From Bauhaus to Our House"

Response to “Tom Wolfe, From Bauhaus to Our House”

The text “From Bauhaus to Our House” by Tom Wolfe was almost like a rundown on the history of “modern architecture” in Europe and how it had influenced the architecture of the United States and ultimately, “our architecture” today (in terms of the Architecture in nowadays Thailand, It is quite evidential that the post-modern architecture that flourished in the U.S had played a big part in influencing the design.)

It was not so interesting in the start of the text where the writer dragged us back to the end of the First World War and introduced us to Gropius, who we later remembered more vividly by the term, The Silver Prince as one of the (if not “the”) pioneers of what we called “modern architecture” with its simple forms, flat roof and honest materials. As we progressed along with the text, we progressively hopped through time, making a stop at each (architecturally) significant moment, which to be honest, besides from Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe , other names mentioned seem to quietly disappear as we moved on to the next chapter. Wolfe didn’t leave such a good impression of modernism with the readers, (at least that is how I feel). Sure he did mentioned how revolutionary it was and how it was so simple, so pure, so “non-bourgeois” (as he would often use this word) but he also shown how at times, how nonfunctional it was (“It was difficult to imagine where such a building might be considered functional.”ch.1). Also he would tells stories of how the architects would ignored their clients opinions and at times, would throw away the things that the clients acquired if they were “out of the scheme”. Thus, modernism didn’t make quite an impression, although it’ll always be admired for its simplicity and purity. Beside form the pioneers; Gropius, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, others architects of the “compound” appeared to just be following the tight restriction, they were trapped in the very “glass box” they’ve created, and thus, despite the beauty of the concept of “less is more”, modernism became boring and eventually bourgeois itself.

The text became a lot more interesting when these Europeans masters entered the United States, it was thrilling to read how the “international style” has confronted the American style of Frank Lloyd Wright. More interesting was the way that Wright reacts to this movement and how he struggled. The new era in the U.S was so interesting to read as it also sparks conflicts amongst architects that eventually they splits into the White, the Gray and even the Rats (rationalism). It was quite exciting to see this “battle” and the end result, that eventually one of the White architects would design something that would had been one of the Grey’s design. Thus it shows how eventually the style will change, keep restricting to “the glass-box” and nothing will be learn, there’s more than one way to do things.

To conclude, this text offers a fair review of the history of modern architecture, especially when it entered the United States. It also informed us about the reality (at least it informed me) that besides from the geniuses; Gropius, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, many of the so called “modernists” were just restricting themselves within the glass-box and hence, their names were quickly forgotten and over shadowed by those that dared to do something different.  Modernism is not “bad architecture” but it was already well defined by the “white gods”, rather than trying to be restricted within that box to try to be on the same unreachable level as these masters, why not try to explore the unexplored, find more ways to achieve the same result with different methods. As it is said, there is more than one way to get the job done.  

First Introduction...

Hello all, (despite the fact that I doubt that there’ll be anyone reading my blog)

It’s probably customary to introduce myself, and my blog 

I’m an architectural student of INDA-(International Program in Design and Architecture), Chulalongkorn University of Thailand, 

...and I’m on my way of becoming (hopefully)
someone in the design field.. one day... yes...one day.

Here I’m doing this blog as a way of submitting my work for my instructors 
but wait,... I’ve always have this hidden passion and dream of working as a columnist for a magazine.

So hey, what’s a great substitution  :D 
thus, I thought to myself, I might just keep doing this blog thing for my other interests (not all about architecture/design) 

so please... if you happen to be someone out there, who is reading my blog..
please comment if you wish, let’s communicate and gives feedbacks

I would appreciate it very much :)

Welcome to an insight on my life in an architectural school!

-Palm-