Do we need Decoration to create a Pleasing Environment - Essay Example

Decoration is, hence, essential because it highlights the effect of architecture and also, it has a utilitarian function especially when decorative elements serve to create a specific, intended environment. There are even thinkers, such as Herbert Bayer and William Morris, who think that decoration in the context of aesthetics have a good effect on the morals and life of individuals. Fortunately for this paper, the body of literature on decoration is comprehensive and that it reveals the wide academic as well as professional interest in the field.

In defining this subject the thoughts of several authors were invaluable. For example, For example, Abruzzo and Solomon (2006) for instance state that decoration is a device in architecture that uses a panoply of visual elements such as emblems, icons, symbols, colors, words, textures, portraits and, furnishing, among others, in creating a pleasing environment. (p. 51) Then, Pevsner wrote that decoration is a consonance out of diverging elements – a surprising Sophoclean ideal and can be contrasted with the Renaissance and modernist ideals of attempting to achieve an ideal harmony out of converging elements. (p. 66) This does not mean, however, that decoration cannot exist without ornaments.

The use of the color white is a case in point. Conventional wisdom would identify the color when used exclusively - say, to design a wall - as the utter absence of ornaments. However, this color has become a pervasive decorative element for contemporary designers. Whiteness became identified with the modernist polemics of the twentieth century onwards. Its use came with the emergence of the decorator as a professional and popular practitioner. Nonetheless, this minimalist approach to design would be explored later in this paper.

Decoration falls within the wider context of design. In this regard, the insights posited by Heller and Balance are helpful. The most important of which was their outline of