Performative Energies and Cultures: Ornament and (as) Structure

Abstract

Recently a great concern and interest has risen on ornament, which pushes us to render back its genesis, its worse times and its new frontiers. This paper will be presented through a methodology which employs historical, theoretical and cultural implications of ornament in Architecture, as well as the present interest and developments on it, in the scope of advances in design and emerging technologies. A key figure in this discourse is the 19 th century German architect Gottfried Semper. His interest in ornament, textile and tectonics through searching the origins of Art and Architecture, provides us with crucial facts for the new frontiers of ornament in relation to structure. The theoretical background that Semper laid will be used to scrutinize the elaboratio n and the importance of textile and patterning in the articulation of Architecture as cultural performance. Following this line, an interesting theoretical and aesthetic approach will be set in the cultural meaning and use of patterning and ornament in the Islamic Architecture and its potentials for new frontiersornament becoming autogenic. The new biological paradigm on advanced design, sees building components as systems that act upon each other, where; material, structure, form, function and surfac e articulation / ornamentation are interconnected, similar to natural / biological systems with high performative energies. This paradigm provides new insights on ornament as structure itself, ornament as outcome of form, function and materialisation, far away from a mere superficial decoration. Further, natural/ biological systems grow highly hierarchical and optimized structures by using brittle and cheap materials, where the patterning of this structure serves their overall energetic performance. Finally, this paper scrutinizes that the role of cutting-edge computational and production technologies is extremely evident in the materialisation of patterned and ornamented aesthetics and in the increased effectiveness of transfers of patterns from nature and biology into engineering and architecture. As a result, the significant emphasis on the structuring logic of tectonic is resulting in a ‗new structuralism' in design, which, in turn emphasizes the role of performative cultures and energies of structuring architecture.