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, this new technical capacity demands a critical examination: What does ornamentation truly represent, and what do we gain or lose by resurrecting it through algorithmic design?
The common narrative attributes Modernism's rejection of ornament to rising labor costs. In the early 20th century, as industrial manufacturing made simple, machine-made goods cheaper, decorative work, being inherently labor-intensive, became increasingly expensive. 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. Thus, modernism's move away from decoration was therefore not just about budget, but also an ideological choice. The proposed worldview paired simplicity with progress and framed decoration as unnecessary and culturally regressive.
