Facade Quilts
Modernist architecture has in turns been celebrated and derided for its characteristic rejection of decoration and ornamentation. In the early 20th century, as developing industrial technologies offered architects a vastly expanded palette with which to create bold new designs, a paradoxical axiom was put forth, that form should ever follow function. Modernist architect Adolf Loos proclaimed in his influential essay Ornament and Crime that “The evolution of culture marches with the elimination of ornament from useful objects,” and put forth moral arguments against the supposed degeneracy of decoration. While these ideas are decidedly outmoded today, it is a legacy that many of our cities have inherited. As a way to reckon with this legacy, this series uses facades from modernist and postmodernist architecture as fields and textures in quilting patterns.