Histories of Ornament: From Global to Local

摘要

Twenty-five insightful scholars have 'ornamented' Histories of Ornament: From Global to Local to offer alternative narratives to the mainstream definitions of what ornament is and can be. The editors, Gülru Necipoğlu and Alina Payne, have divided the book into seven thematic parts encompassing twenty-six chapters that, despite their number, remain theoretically cohesive and highly interconnected. The chapters avoid an overarching definition of ornament to demonstrate the multitude of trajectories that have produced ideas of 'ornament' historically. It seems the authors intended to make Adolf Loos, the Austrian architect who claimed 'ornament was a crime' (p. 1), roll over in his grave. Authors often quote him and deal with him severely to explain not only that 'ornament is back' (p. 20), but also that it never really left (p. 334).