Ornament and craft:Digital design and the profession

The separation of ornament from Modern architecture declared famously in Adolf Loos’ essay “Ornament and Crime” placed space as the primary concern of architecture, with evidence of craftsmanship and symbolism removed from the canonical and conventional public buildings of the past century. Yet, Harvard Graduate School of Design’s historian Professor Antoine Picon notes the widespread return of ornamental expression in architecture today is “inseparable from the massive diffusion of the computer” and furthered by a “weakening in the tectonic approach and the increased importance attached to surface.” In Cellular Tessellation (CT)—a project developed for Vivid Sydney 2014, an 18-day festival of light, music and ideas – this contemporary problem of the separation of surface from structure was addressed as a core area of interest, as were ornament and the expressive potential of architecture through digitally enabled craftsmanship

A Renaissance Instrument to Support Nonprofits: The Sale of Private Chapels in Florentine Churches

Catholic churches in Renaissance Florence supported themselves overwhelmingly from the contributions of wealthy citizens. The sale of private chapels within churches to individuals was a significant source of church funds, and facilitated a church construction boom. Chapel sales offered three benefits to churches: prices were usually far above cost; donor/purchasers purchased masses and other tie-in services; and they added to the magnificence of the church because donors were required to decorate chapels expensively. Donors purchased chapels for two primary reasons: to facilitate services for themselves and their families, such as masses and church burials, that would speed their departure from Purgatory; and to gain status in the community. Chapels were private property within churches, but were only occasionally used directly by their owners. The expense of chapels and their decorations made them an ideal signal for wealth, particularly since sumptuary laws limited most displays of wealth. To overcome the contributions free-rider problem, these churches sold private benefits not readily available elsewhere, namely status and salvation.