Review:
"Histories of Ornament will propel art historical consideration of ornament to new levels. No other volume so clearly shows the profound relevance of medieval and early modern ornament, and the surprising cross-cultural aspects of their histories, to the resurgence of interest in ornament in today's global world."--Persis Berlekamp, University of Chicago
"This book rethinks the study of ornament. Necipoğlu and Payne make a perfect team because of the sustained brilliance and near-global coverage of their scholarship. Their choice of contributors, topics, and approaches reflects their formidable knowledge of the field and its leading researchers."--Philip Sohm, University of Toronto
"After its famous denunciation by Adolf Loos, ornament seemed a wasteful frivolity to most architects and designers. But that attitude has lost steam in recent years, as firms derive much of their revenue by building in places with a healthier regard for pattern and decoration. Right at the outset, this scholarly tome firmly establishes the vitality of architectural ornament today, leaving readers to peruse premodern histories after having shed their Loosian prejudice."--Metropolis
"[A] handsome book."---Peter Parker, A Magazine for RIBA Friends of Architecture
"[An] important volume . . . seamlessly edited by Necipoğlu and Payne, [the book] covers an unprecedented and stringent collection of scholarly research and reflection. It is not a history of ornament per se, but rather a rigorous and sometimes cautionary record of the history of ornament's shifting meaning and theoretical basis. This volume assesses ornament as a legitimate aspect of designing the future built environment. It is neither elegy nor encyclopedia; the purpose instead is summed up simply in the editors' introduction as 'to address what ornament does [and did].' The result is a summons to surrender preconceived notions about ornament as somehow apart from or inferior to architecture in its full range of possible expression."---Paul Gunther, Architect's Newspaper
"An exceptionally stimulating . . . collection of essays on a topic that is certain to be of increasing importance to our discipline."---Kathleen James-Chakraborty, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians
"The value of the publication is . . . in having succeeded in associating several histories of ornament, which are highly distinct on the surface, into a single volume and thereby establishing uncommon analogies and correspondences. . . . A remarkable new perspective."---Sébastien Bontemps, Renaissance Quarterly
"For the richness and complexity of the questions asked, Histories of Ornament is an outstanding overview of the field of ornament studies today. Its emphasis on historical examples of ornamental mobility and on comparable contemporary practices are perhaps the strongest contributions to the field."---Camilla Pietrabissa, Immediations
About the Author:
Gulru Necipoglu is the Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Art and director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University. She is the author of The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire (Princeton) and The Topkapi Scroll: Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture. Alina Payne is the Alexander P. Misheff Professor of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University and Paul E. Geier Director of Villa I Tatti, The Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti in Florence. She is the author of The Architectural Treatise in the Italian Renaissance and From Ornament to Object: Genealogies of Architectural Modernism.
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