Claude Bragdon’s “Projective Ornament”: mineral, vegetable, animal, human

Malathouni, C ORCID: 0000-0001-6233-6034 (2016) Claude Bragdon’s “Projective Ornament”: mineral, vegetable, animal, human. Architectural Theory Review, 20 (3). 312 - 335.

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Abstract

This essay discusses the work of the American architect, mystic, and theorist Claude Fayette Bragdon (1866–1946). It focuses on his “Projective Ornament”, which, it is argued, puts forward a “higher” type of “organicism”, which adds a fourth “step”—that of the human—to earlier theories that presented minerals, vegetables, and animals as part of an evolutionary, hierarchical sequence. In this connection, Bragdon’s theories can be seen to develop a new type of “humanist” architecture that relates to the full scope of human nature, namely, embracing human consciousness, psychological attributes and spiritual qualities, as well as its embodied presence. This position serves to highlight the “subjective” aspect of “space”, crucial for its adoption as a principal architectural category, and still topical.

Item Type:	Article
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	31 Aug 2018 14:44
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2023 01:25
DOI:	10.1080/13264826.2016.1195419
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3025736