"Architectural ornamentation has been a recurrent subject of debate across the industry for decades. A practice that was largely abandoned during the Modernist movement could now be standing on a platform that might, again, allow its resurgence, due to the current convergence of robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and digital fabrication. Technology has seemingly removed the primary obstacle to decorative detail: the high cost of skilled manual labor."
"However, the shift was not purely economic. For decades before Modernism, technologies like cast iron and mechanized milling had actually made certain types of decoration abundant and affordable, applying it to common buildings. Cast iron was even implemented in famous monuments of the early industrial revolution, such as the Eiffel Tower and many bridges, like the one in Shropshire, England, where engineers as well as architects utilized ornamentation."
Architectural ornamentation may experience renewed viability as robotics, artificial intelligence, and digital fabrication remove the historical cost barrier of skilled manual labor. The decline of ornament during Modernism reflected not only rising costs but also an ideological commitment to simplicity as progress and decoration as culturally regressive. Earlier industrial technologies like cast iron and mechanized milling had previously made decoration abundant and affordable and were used on notable monuments and infrastructure. The current technical capacity for algorithmic ornamentation requires careful consideration of what ornamentation represents and the cultural, aesthetic, and social implications of its resurgence.
Read at ArchDaily
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