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Comment by thunderbird120 | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting to think that rather than being destroyed by becoming too expensive, ornamentation may have died because it became too cheap. A lot of ornamentation existed to show off wealth and status, but if everyone can have it thanks to improvements in production then it doesn't do that anymore.

It's unfortunate that making buildings look nice seems to be secondary to other types of status signaling. It's hardly a new issue either. When the Chrysler Building was completed in 1930 it was criticized for being gaudy for having the nerve to actually try to have some style.

>"Lewis Mumford, a supporter of the International Style and one of the foremost architectural critics of the United States at the time, despised the building for its "inane romanticism, meaningless voluptuousness, [and] void symbolism".

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I'll say one thing: ornamentation is harder to clean.

If you're in charge of cleaning your own things, perhaps you desire surfaces that are easier and quicker to deal with. If you're in a position to hire people to do it, maybe you don't care as much.

And I wonder if that's one reason for less ornamentation. There's also a desire for more simplicity, I guess as a reaction to the layers of complexity we wrap our lives up in, and again, perhaps ornamentation in that case becomes psychologically unsettling.

Interesting notion. Perhaps the same is happening with LED lamps and fixtures now, in the UK. Every rental is flooded with lights in all kinds of shapes. They are sold extremely affordably everywhere. To me at this point the novelty has worn off and it looks tacky. Also, most damning, they aren’t replaceable or repairable so all it’s doing is creating future e-waste…

People install fake soundbars: https://youtu.be/52hBPL6y_aU

The Chrysler Building critique is not totally crazy (and I say this as a Chrysler Building stan) - it's not hard to imagine it having a very different public perception outside the context of its time and place. Not every building gets to be the cuter, shorter sibling of the Empire State Building, the Sam the Eagle of NYC skyscrapers.

I don’t know, you can look at it as because gaudy, ostentatious displays of wealth have become impossible, we’ve become able to focus on other things (yes, including subtler displays of wealth).

If the ornamentation had value outside of signaling, it’s now readily available to everyone, as the article says.

But I’m not sure how much I believe that. Fashion is fashion. I’m sure there is a hypothetical present where minimalism isn’t valued nearly as much. But I still think that’s mostly orthogonal to how much people care about aesthetics.

We've lost more than intricate ornamentation. We've lost ornament as a thing that regular people 'ought' to be around. I think it's interesting how Americans often assume that ornament is meant to display wealth, and is thus some sign of show-offness. I think the opposite is often the case. Ornament displayed in public is actually meant for public enjoyment. It's a form of philanthropy when done by a private wealthy individual, and a form of public works when done by the state. Humans deserve to live in beautiful environs. We should strive for that, but we've regressed greatly, with even wealthy neighborhoods being devoid of nice beautiful public spaces (except for a handful in particular cities).

The average Roman peasant would have been exposed to more ornamentation in their life than the typical American. Whereas Americans would be driving by endless McDonalds, Starbucks, and strip mall number 523, a Roman peasant would have seen the great triumphal arcs, the facades of the great buildings, etc. It's just a complete loss. Anyone who's been to an older city in Europe or Asia knows exactly what we're missing. When ornament is a thing that exists, whether private or public, the whole public enjoys it regardless.

> I think the opposite is often the case. Ornament displayed in public is actually meant for public enjoyment.

The statues and fountains throughout Madrid are a great example of this. Sheer beauty all over the city that you pass just going out for a coffee.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_of_Neptune_(Madrid)

Not every Roman peasant lived in Rome. It’d be more apt to compare Rome with, say, NYC than with a random strip mall somewhere.

Sub rome with any Roman town.

Such as?

The average Roman peasant would have been exposed to more ornamentation in their life than the typical American.

You'd have to count ornamentation very selectively for that to be true. Every corporate logo is ornamental. A modern American farmer probably encounters more ornamentation before they get into their ornamentally bright-green tractor. The rivet in their pants is ornamental, the mirror-polish on the bezel of their phone is ornamental, the 'World's Best Mom' on their coffee mug is ornamental, etc.

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