Evolutionary Architecture: 3. Ornament
Like symmetry, ornament has been a key feature of architecture throughout history — until modernism rejected it. Every human civilisation used ornament in its architecture. Even in relatively primitive societies, such as African and Germanic tribes, it can widely be found on pottery, weaponry and clothing.1 As with symmetry, we like it because of how we evolved.
The universal need for decoration
Like for symmetry, the evidence of this lies in history: since ornament appears in every civilisation, its appeal must be built into human nature. It comes from our evolutionary history.
Here's one likely explanation: buildings are relatively new in human evolution. For most of our history, large structures didn't exist. When we see plain, unornamented buildings, our brain might perceive them as unnatural and therefore potentially threatening. Humans have evolved to become uncomfortable or stressed when seeing structures that were not benign during this time. Ornament disguises a building as a natural object, which explains why it often takes natural forms like leaves and flowers, making buildings feel safer and more familiar.
Looking at history, we can see that certain types of ornament are especially popular worldwide. This makes sense from an evolutionary psychological perspective: forms that were harmless in nature should feel comfortable to us, while abstract or unfamiliar forms might trigger ancient warning systems in our brains. Brain research confirms this — we have visceral reactions to unnatural shapes because they represented potential threats to our ancestors.2
Leaves and foliage
Throughout history and across all cultures, people have decorated buildings with leaf patterns:
Ancient Egyptians covered walls and the capitals of their pillars largely with simplistic depictions of foliage and flowers (Figure 3.1)
Romans used leaf patterns extensively
Greeks created the famous Corinthian column capital – a symmetrical arrangement of acanthus leaves topped with spirals and a flower (Figure 3.2)
Figure 3.1. Egyptian columns with symmetrical leaf-shaped ornaments
Figure 3.2. Drawing of a Corinthian capital and base from the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli — featuring symmetrically placed acanthus leaves, flowers, and spirals.
This love of leaf ornaments exists almost everywhere. Chinese buildings (Figure 3.3) feature elaborate leaf carvings. Even in Islamic cultures, where depicting plants and animals was prohibited by Islam, ornament involving foliage persisted (Figure 3.4). As historian James Ward noted in 1897:
‘The originality of [Muslim architecture] arose from the experimenting in ornamental patterns that should have no likeness to plants, animals, or other natural forms. This prohibition of the use of objects from nature in their ornament was one of the articles of the Moslem religion; but to get any pleasing variety in ornament and leave out all natural reminiscences in the designs is out of human power, so consequently we have, even in Saracenic ornament, natural forms put through a geometrical process of draughtsmanship. Saracenic ornament in what is sometimes called Arabian has leaf and bud-like forms interlaced with strap-work, which is often very beautiful and is known under the name of “Arabesque”.’
(James Ward, Historic Ornament, published in 1897)
Figure 3.3. Chinese wood carving in the shape of foliage and flowers.
Figure 3.4. Ornament in the shape of foliage and flowers in the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque in Esfahan, Iran.
One exception might be ancient Mayan civilisation. It’s difficult to tell whether foliage was popular there as well because Mayan ornament was relatively unrealistic and simplistic. Besides, not much of their architecture is left. This also applies to African ornament, which like Mayan ornament involves exaggerated facial features in its depictions of faces. This might be because artists in these societies weren’t sophisticated enough to copy the natural world around them, so we can’t conclude that this falsifies the universal value of foliage in ornament. Another factor may be at play. But in all technologically and artistically advanced societies in history, foliage played a big role in ornament.
Flowers
Flowers are an interesting case. We can't eat them and they haven't been useful for survival. Yet humans everywhere love them:
We buy them for beauty (the global flower market is worth $79 billion yearly)3
We give them as romantic gifts
We use them at weddings and funerals
We decorate our homes and gardens with them
Flower patterns appear in the world's most beloved buildings:
The Palace of Versailles (Figure 3.5)
The Taj Mahal (Figure 3.6)
Mosques (Figure 3.7)
The Forbidden City (Figure 3.8)
Figure 3.5. The Queen's Apartment at Versailles, covered in realistic and very symmetrical floral patterns.
Figure 3.6. A symmetrical floral ornament in the Taj Mahal
Figure 3.7. Leaf and flower patterns in the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, Iran
Figure 3.8. Floral ornament in the Forbidden City, Beijing.
Why do we find flowers beautiful? Again: evolution. As Lisa Duchene explains:
‘People love flowers for their array of colors, textures, shapes and fragrances. But is pleasing the human eye the purpose of nature's floral design?
Hardly. Survival is the plant's top priority, reminds Claude dePamphilis, a Penn State plant evolutionary biologist and principal investigator of the Floral Genome Project.
"The beauty of the flower is a by-product of what it takes for the plant to attract pollinators," says dePamphilis. "The features that we appreciate are cues to pollinators that there are rewards to be found in the flower."
Scent, color, and size all attract a diversity of pollinators, which include thousands of species of bees, wasps, butterflies, moths, and beetles, as well as vertebrates such as birds and bats.’
(Lisa Duchene, ‘Probing Question: Why Are Flowers Beautiful?’, 21 January 2008, Penn State News)4
Animals and humans
Another universal theme in ornament is depicting people, animals, and mythical creatures (like centaurs — half human, half horse).
Interestingly, different cultures often depict the same animals in their own style. Lions, for example, appear in:
European sculpture — realistic and powerful (Figure 3.9)
Chinese art — more mythical and stylised "guardian lions" (Figure 3.10)
African decoration — simplified but recognisable
Figure 3.9. Realistic lion sculpture in Florence
Figure 3.10. A Chinese ‘guardian lion’. Less realistic, more mythical and in a way more ornamental than its European equivalents
Figure 3.11. A depiction of a growling lion’s head
From prehistoric cave paintings onwards, humans and animals have been primary subjects for ornament. Even in Islamic art, where such depictions were forbidden, artists still created them.5 In classical architecture, human figures are shown with beautiful bodies and faces.
Figure 3.12. Roman mosaic from Pompeii with humans and serpents, bordered by foliage
Figure 3.13. A lavishly ornamented gable in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. On both sides it contains muscular human figures, representing Neptune (left) and Mercury (right). Note how they are positioned in a way that shows their lean muscles (i.e. their most attractive features), especially visible in their legs.
These figures were probably built with a symbolic meaning in mind. Neptune, god of the seas and Mercury, god of travel and commerce, both fitted the Dutch republic’s role as the centre of world (naval) commerce at the time. At the United East India Company’s peak, it boasted a merchant fleet larger than that of any other country.
Also note the use of symmetry and foliage in its design. This gable is clearly designed to appeal to our innate aesthetic preferences in many ways.
Spirals
Some abstract shapes also have universal appeal. The spiral appears everywhere:
Germanic tribes put spirals on shields and pottery6
Art nouveau embraces spiral forms
Chinese art incorporates spirals in hair and decoration (Figure 3.10)
Greek and Roman columns include spiral elements (Figures 3.12 and 3.13)
Baroque architecture features prominent spirals (Figure 3.14)
Whether we like spirals because of their mathematical properties, their curved shape, or because they appear in nature (shells, plants), their worldwide popularity suggests they tap into something fundamental in human psychology.
Figure 3.14. Designs and proportions for an Ionian column
Figure 3.15. Baroque capitals from France — featuring spirals, symmetry, foliage, and faces
Figure 3.16. A console containing two spirals, foliage and a lion’s head. Note its symmetry when seen from the front
Figure 3.17. A Roman mosaic depicting the ‘Vitruvian wave’ pattern in Vaison-la-Romaine, France
Curves over sharp angles
Science has proven that curves reduce stress while sharp angles increase it. Over a century of research shows that:
Curves make us feel happy and relaxed
Sharp, jagged forms trigger feelings of pain and fear
Brain scans show our amygdala (fear centre) activates when viewing sharp angles
Why? In nature, sharp things meant danger — thorns, teeth, claws. Our brains evolved to spot these threats quickly and react with fear. Even sitting safely at home, part of our brain still watches for these ancient dangers. This explains why styles full of curves — like Baroque, Art Nouveau, and Rococo – feel so appealing. We're wired to prefer rounded forms over sharp ones. As Ann Sussman explains:
‘In terms of innate preference for shape, humans also have a clear bias for curves over straight or sharp lines. Aesthetic judgments are a complex matter engaging many part of the brain. Studies in the field of aesthetics more than a century ago found that when it comes to 2D and 3D objects, curves elicit feelings of happiness and elation, while jagged and sharp forms, tend to connect to feelings of pain and sadness …
… Curves are in general felt to be more beautiful than straight lines. They are more graceful and pliable, and avoid the harshness of some straight lines,” psychologist Kate Gordon wrote in her book Esthetics, published in 1909 (Gordon: 169). Even “the most simple abstract line… may have an emotional effect and meaning of its own. (Gordon: 160).” Numerous psychology research papers have documented these findings since…
…The impact of our preference for curves transfers to our feelings about architecture according to a more recent study using fMRI, psychologist Oshin Vartanian and colleagues (2013) determined. In this test, twenty-four subjects were given 200 pictures of architectural spaces to look at. Half of the images were rectilinear; half curvilinear. “As predicted, participants were more likely to judge spaces as beautiful if they were curvilinear than rectilinear,” the report said (Vartanian et al. 2013: 1). “The results suggest that the well-established effect of contour on aesthetic preference can be extended to architecture. Furthermore, the combination of our behavioral and neural evidence underscores the role of emotion in our preference for curvilinear objects in this domain.” (Vartanian et al. 2013: 1). We like things plump and round. Why does the curve-bias exist? Humans evolved to assess their environment quickly. Pointed shapes, such as barbs, thorns, quills, sharp teeth, were everpresent threats in our evolutionary past, so it was advantageous to sense them fast and be able to flee if one had to. Psychologically, part of our brain still feels a lion could be at the gate, even as we sit in the living room of a high-rise or suburban tract house. We evolved for this past environment, and are still designed for it whether or not it exists in our present.
“Humans like sharp angled objects significantly less than they like objects with a curved contour,” wrote neuroscientists Moshe Bar and Maital Neta in a 2007 paper summarizing a study that scanned participants as they observed more than 200 different shapes. “This bias can stem from an increased sense of threat and danger conveyed by these sharp visual elements.” The researchers noted an area of the brain engaged in the fearful responses, the amygdala (sometimes called our ‘lizard brain’), “shows significantly more activation for the sharp-angled objects compared with their curved counterparts.” They also proposed “that the danger conveyed by the sharpangle stimuli was relatively implicit.” It appears, then, we do not even have to learn much about some things, part of our brain is set up to have us run from a sharp shape.’(Ann Sussman, Cognitive Architecture)
The universal appeal of curves could also perhaps explain that of spirals. But there’s some evidence to the contrary, like the angular ‘spiral’ patterns that originated in Greek architecture.
Clear borders
Look carefully at ornamented surfaces, and you'll notice they often have defined borders — frames that separate the ornament from the plain wall. These borders usually contain their own ornamentation. The ornamental planes in Figures 3.3, 3.4, 3.8 and 3.12 all contain well-defined borders surrounding them. You can also find these borders around design elements such as doors and windows.
[Figures showing decorative panels with clear borders]
We prefer clear boundaries because they make objects easier for our brains to process. Because quickly understanding our environment was crucial for survival, we evolved to feel comfortable with clearly defined, easy-to-read structures.7 This also explains our preference for symmetries.
Other natural attractions
We might also find certain colours beautiful because they signal food:
Ripe fruits evolved bright colours to attract animals (who spread their seeds)
We evolved to find these colours attractive because they led us to nutrition
Conversely, we find certain colours unappealing because they often meant poison or danger
In general, we can say that our sense of beauty and ugliness evolved as a survival tool. It draws us toward helpful things (like nutritious food) and repels us from dangerous ones (like sharp thorns or poison).
Conclusion
There are human universals when it comes to aesthetic preferences, which affects how we experience architecture. Apart from the multiple types of symmetry that universally appeal to us:
We like ornament
We prefer natural forms, such as leaves, flowers, animals
We like certain shapes, such as spirals and curves
We avoid others, such as sharp angles and undefined boundaries
These preferences are:
Found in every culture
Rooted in evolution
Confirmed by brain science
Ignored by modern architects
Leaves, flowers, animals, curves, borders — found in every culture, every civilisation and every era. This isn't coincidence or cultural transmission. This is human nature asserting itself through architecture. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” people often say, meaning that taste is subjective. But while taste is subjective, it’s definitely not random or completely shaped by culture or ideology. As the previous articles explained, there are innate human universals that explain why most people dislike modern architecture. These human universals matter, as we'll see in articles 5 to 7. But first, let's explore another crucial factor in architectural beauty: where the viewer stands.
What's next
The next article will reveal how your position relative to a building affects how beautiful is to you — and why architects who ignore this create designs that can never truly please us.
Click here for the next article of this series.
Ward, J., Historic Ornament, published in 1897
Sussman, A., Cognitive Architecture, published October 2014, Taylor & Francis Ltd
According to the ‘Global Flower and Ornamental Plants Sales Market Report 2021’, published by Precision Reports on 4 March 2021, retrieved on 15 September 2021 from http://www.precisionreports.co/global-flower-and-ornamental-plants-sales-market-17522942
Retrieved on 15 September 2021 from https://news.psu.edu/story/141228/2008/01/21/research/probing-question-why-are-flowers-beautiful
Ward, J., Historic Ornament, published in 1897
Ward, J., Historic Ornament, published in 1897
Sussman, A., Cognitive Architecture, published October 2014, Taylor & Francis Ltd