ORNAMENT AND THE MACHINE IN AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE IN THE LATE NINETEENTH AND EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURIES

Architectural ornament in America was transformed during the twentieth century, and the principal influence upon its transformation was the machine. American ornament from the seventeenth century to the early twentieth century had been inspired by history and nature. However, in the twentieth century the visual characteristics of the machine and the technics of mechanical production replaced these traditional sources as the principal determinants of ornamental design. To place in perspective the development of the machine as the inspiration for American architectural ornament, American conceptions and attitudes towards the machine and ornament are presented. America\u27s rapid rise to a position of world power in the early twentieth century depended upon the spirit of her citizens and the available natural resources, but the pace of advancement was primarily due to the aid of machinery. Machinery was popular throughout American history, but its power provoked an element of fear. A representative example is the locomotive, which was depicted as both beneficial and frightening in various nineteenth-century visual and written descriptions. These feelings of ambivalence lessened in the twentieth century as the machine itself became a popular symbol of the age, and the former fear of machines was translated into a distrust of the results of mechanization--industry, Big Business, and the city. In the nineteenth century the most significant ornamental inspirations were nature and history. Nature, including color and geometry, provided non-historical sources for the architects interested in developing a modern style of American ornament. The World\u27s Columbian Exposition of 1893 dramatically framed the meeting of those architects interested in nature as inspiration and those interested in history. This event marked the ascension of history over nature as the principal source of American architectural ornament through the first decades of the twentieth century. In the same period the machine assumed increasing importance and by the 1920s became a principal influence on ornament. One significant effect of the machine was the development of architectural ornament inspired by the technics of production as seen in the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. Another effect was the creation of ornament inspired by the visual characteristics of the machine as seen in Zigzag and Streamlined Moderne architecture