Ornament & Versprechen

TEXT IN GERMAN. The title of the publication is intended as an allusion to the virtually manifesto-like treatise 'Ornament und Verbrechen' of 1908 by the Viennese architect Adolf Loos. For more than six decades -- from the Deutscher Werkbund and the Bauhaus to the Ulm School and Functionalism -- this influential document effectively legitimized the taboo on every kind of decoration and ornamentation. Our title thus calls attention to the change of perspective unanimously adopted by architecture and product design primarily in the 1980s. Both Postmodernism and Memphis -- two movements which today exhibit greater similarities than differences -- were above all aesthetic reactions to Functionalism, which they considered cold, technocratic and one-sidedly rational.