Dalibor Vesely on Ornament

This extract from an interview between Patrick Lynch and Dalibor Vesely "inhabitable models: Eric Parry architects, Haworth Tompkins architects, Lynch architects" from the Venice Biennale 2012, via "Civic Ground" by Patrick Lynch p66, raises really interesting questions of what the structuring decorum he refers to is for, what the order that it emerges from is for, and how this can be questioned through the very manifestations of that decorum itself, of that order itself, in ornament. A good example is cosmetics taken to theatrical extremes of liberatory practice in subcultures of camp and drag. Ornament could be to situate things within a larger whole, but it can do this in a tense, liberal dialogue with it, keeping it on its toes through simultaneous recognition and challenge. NB, Khaos (chaos) is the opposite of Kosmos, and is thereby held at bay by ornament...

“What we have been saying about the appropriate, right, corresponding -call it whatever- location, situatedness of particular things in the structure of the city -is a question of being proper (prepon). And proper, of course, eventually is decorum, and decorum means fits the purpose, something which fits the purpose. Decorum is when you’re dressing for a particular event: you can be overdressed or underdressed, because you’re missing the decorum of the event… and the decorum is subordinated to the overall notion of order… what is “proper” etc, is order as a whole, it fits into the overall order of things. And from then on you can also begin to understand or derive the meaning of terms like what is “common good”? And what is “good” Because the good is part of what fits the purpose of the whole, and responds to it. And decorum is of course subordinated to the notion of order, and order -in the original term for it- is “kosmos”. And it’s interesting that kosmos can be translated into Latin as ‘ornament’. Ornate; ornament; order; cosmesis: because kosmos is ordering. And it’s still preserved in the current term “cosmetics”. You order yourself for a particular purpose; you paint your face. You re-order yourself, and so on. So, eventually, underneath that term, is ornament. Ornament is ordering. Ornament is a language, which is mediating between the different levels of reality, and eventually brings things into coherence and harmony and co-existence. But it’s an ordering principle, bringing things into overall order. That’s why you ornate, because you are referring to something beyond its own presence. That’s what people don’t appreciate anymore in modern terms of ornament, that ornament is not there just to embellish, to make it more interesting. If we say it makes it more interesting, we have to finish the sentence with “interesting for what?” For a purpose: In order to make it part of a larger whole, to situate it, and therefore make it par of the overall order of things, because it’s only from the overall order of things that you can understand, or derive, the order of the particular thing.”