Ornament And Sociocultural Environment

Ornament is always a debated theme during the development of architecture, and presents staunch vitality in the voice that objects to it. The Chinese modern architectural ornaments since the 20th century both have been anfractuosity and have become illegibility and temporaries, which have been affected by the phantasmagoric social environment, the technology development and the economic advantages. It is more important to comprehend and design the ornament with the compositive and dynamic views rather than the isolated and static views. But, the research about it has been almost absent in this field.The first part of the dissertation is the basic theory. Firstly, it analyzeds the problems of the western and Chinese ornament definitions and then proposed the noumenon ornament and applied ornament through the relationship of ornament and architecture noumenon. Secondly, it summarizeds three level functions of ornament in architecture development: practicality, beautification and communicating meaning. With regard to the philosophical contention of the beautification and communicating meaning in the history, it analyzed the ornament problem in the modern and post-modern architecture theory. Thirdly, it point out that it is a consistent and interacting relationship between ornament and social culture environment.The second part is the analysis of the modern architectural ornament of china since the 20th century. It is divided into three parts. Each part is discussed the intrinsic relationship among the technology, economic, social culture, applied art and the ornament, including noumenonal ornament and applied ornament. And then it is evaluated from the point of historic and compositive view. Moreover, the emphasis on the evaluating is affected by the main factor in each part.The third part is the principles and approaches. Firstly, it is brought some revelation from the development of the modern architectural ornament of china since the 20th century and considered that it should be made a concrete analysis of ornament under the idea of the complicated thought. Secondly, it is discusses the future of ornament on the situation of the pluralism at present, and makes a conclusion that ornament is important to architecture from three kinds of view. Thirdly, it is proposes four principles in the ornament design based on the thought of "returning to rational ornament": the principle of era quality, the principle of localization, the principle of masses quality and the principle of economy. The four principles are applied and tested through the practice.