The Return of Ornament: Why Architects Are Making Buildings Expressive Again

Ornament is returning to contemporary architecture, but it rarely looks like a direct revival of nineteenth-century decoration. In many recent buildings, expression comes through deep window openings, patterned masonry, shaped terra cotta, fluted metal, arches, screens, textured concrete, custom glazing, and façade components whose geometry responds to structure, program, climate, or context.

This shift is especially visible after decades in which smooth glass curtain walls and increasingly abstract building envelopes became common across commercial and residential development. Recent projects such as 520 Fifth Avenue, 64 University Place, Lantern House, One Vanderbilt, and the Fitzroy show architects using depth, pattern, craft, historical references, and material articulation to give buildings a stronger identity.

The significance for owners is not simply aesthetic. An expressive façade can influence window dimensions, daylight, thermal performance, waterproofing, structural attachments, fabrication, maintenance, construction sequencing, replacement strategies, and cost. It can also affect something more difficult to quantify but commercially relevant: whether a building establishes a recognizable architectural identity or becomes difficult to distinguish from its competitors.

The useful contemporary definition of ornament is therefore broader than applied decoration. Ornament can emerge from the way a façade is assembled, the depth of a window, the profile of a masonry unit, the rhythm of structure, or the repetition of a component across a building. When these elements are integrated with performance and construction, expression does not have to be an additional layer placed on architecture. It can be part of how the building works.

Modernism Did Not Settle the Question of Ornament

Any discussion of ornament in modern architecture eventually encounters Adolf Loos. His 1908 essay Ornament and Crime became one of the most influential attacks on decorative excess associated with emerging modernism. Architectural historians Jimena Canales and Andrew Herscher describe the essay as a key formulation connecting unornamented architecture with modernity, while also emphasizing that its arguments emerged from problematic nineteenth-century theories of criminal anthropology. The essay's later promotion by architects including Le Corbusier helped establish its importance within the modern movement. Yet the architectural transition away from ornament was never as straightforward as a simple progression from decoration to functionalism.

Louis Sullivan, one of the architects responsible for developing the architectural language of the early skyscraper, regarded ornament as fundamental to architecture's expressive capacity. The Art Institute of Chicago documents how Sullivan rejected conventional neoclassical formulas while developing elaborate systems of geometric and botanical ornament derived from nature. His designs were translated by draftsmen and skilled modelers into terra cotta, plaster, and metal. Sullivan is particularly relevant to the current discussion because his ornament was not simply historical decoration attached to modern construction.

He was simultaneously working with steel-frame technology, elevators, large commercial programs, and new building heights. At the Sullivan Center in Chicago, for example, the steel skeletal structure allowed large interiors and expansive windows, while the lower floors used intricate cast-iron ornament inspired by plant forms. Structure and ornament belonged to the same architectural project. The contemporary return of expression has a similar opportunity. Architects do not need to choose between modern building technology and ornament. Current fabrication and façade technologies make it possible for the two to operate together.

Ornament Is Returning as Depth Rather Than Applied Decoration

One reason contemporary ornament can be difficult to identify is that much of it is three-dimensional rather than graphic. Consider 64 University Place in Greenwich Village.

KPF designed the eleven-story residential building around a façade of deeply recessed arched openings constructed from hand-laid brick. The architecture responds to the Revival-style masonry buildings of the surrounding neighborhood, but it does not reproduce their historical decorative motifs. Instead, depth, repetition, masonry texture, shadow, and the geometry of the arch give the façade its character. KPF has itself described the building as providing depth and texture without explicit ornament. That distinction is useful because it demonstrates how the boundaries of ornament have changed.

A recessed arch may perform several jobs simultaneously. It establishes the proportion of the window, creates shadow, thickens the apparent façade, relates the exterior to the scale of an interior room, and produces a recognizable pattern across the elevation.

At 64 University Place, the hand-set masonry also required close collaboration between the design team, façade contractor, and masons. Flashed bricks provide subtle color variation, while raked mortar joints increase the perception of depth. The arches were laid by hand rather than simply reproduced as precast assemblies. This is a form of architectural expression that depends on construction. If the depth were removed, the joints flattened, the material replaced, or the windows reorganized, the building's character would change substantially.

That distinction matters for owners because integrated expression has to be protected through design development, value engineering, procurement, and construction. If the architectural identity depends on wall depth, profiles, masonry bonds, or custom components, those elements cannot always be removed late in the project without changing the architecture itself.

The Arch Has Returned Because It Can Organize More Than Appearance

Few architectural elements demonstrate the current shift more clearly than the arch. For much of twentieth-century modernism, the arch carried strong historical associations. Contemporary architects are now using it again, often with modern façade systems and structural methods rather than traditional load-bearing construction. KPF's 520 Fifth Avenue provides a particularly visible New York example.

The 88-story mixed-use tower uses a repeating system of arched façade modules across its retail, club, office, and residential programs. According to KPF, the arches vary in response to the programs behind them while differentiating the tower from surrounding all-glass skyscrapers.

The material system changes as the building rises. Terra cotta is concentrated at the base, while the upper tower uses color-matched aluminum assemblies that continue the visual language with less weight. Bronze-finished elements and fluted surfaces further articulate the openings. This demonstrates why contemporary ornament should not be understood only as decoration. The arch is functioning as a repeatable façade module.

Its proportions can respond to the dimensions of rooms and floor plates. Its depth creates shadow. Its repetition establishes order across a very tall building. Its historical association connects the new tower to nearby Beaux-Arts architecture. Its construction can be rationalized through modular manufacturing. KPF also uses the stepped massing of the tower to reference New York's early skyscraper tradition, connecting façade expression with the larger silhouette rather than confining ornament to the surface.

For owners considering a similarly expressive system, the important early question is whether the architectural motif can become part of a rational façade module. A highly repetitive component can justify more development and tooling than an elaborate condition occurring only once. Expression and repetition do not have to be opposites.

Terra Cotta Has Become a Bridge Between Ornament and Modern Construction

The renewed use of architectural terra cotta is particularly important to this movement. Terra cotta has a long history in New York and Chicago architecture because molded ceramic units can combine durability, color, fire resistance, texture, and complex profiles. Contemporary manufacturing methods allow the material to participate in modern curtain walls and rainscreen systems rather than requiring architects to reproduce historic masonry construction. One Vanderbilt illustrates this transition.

KPF used terra cotta in the tower's fluted spandrels and lobby ceiling as a reference to the masonry and Guastavino tile of neighboring Grand Central Terminal. The material introduces texture and warmth into an otherwise highly glazed contemporary skyscraper. The process was not simply a matter of selecting an existing tile.

KPF reports that the team spent several years working with Studio Christine Jetten to develop the glaze. Because terra cotta naturally varies between batches, achieving the desired relationship between variation, color, and consistency became part of the façade development. This is where ornament becomes a technical issue.

Custom ceramic components require decisions about profiles, tolerances, glaze variation, attachment, replacement, water management, thermal movement, fabrication quantities, and quality control. The architectural benefit is equally tangible. A profiled terra-cotta component catches light differently throughout the day. Repetition creates rhythm. Glazing creates variation that a flat painted surface cannot precisely reproduce. The façade can acquire visual depth without requiring every piece to be unique.

For a developer, this means material expression should be evaluated alongside fabrication logic. The relevant comparison is not simply whether terra cotta costs more or less than another finish. The team needs to understand how the material integrates with the entire wall assembly and what architectural value is lost or gained through substitution.

Craft and Industrial Production Are No Longer Opposites

Traditional ornament was labor intensive. Stone was carved. Plaster was modeled. Metal was cast. Wood was carved or turned. Terra cotta required molds. Complex façades depended on networks of draftsmen, modelers, fabricators, and tradespeople. Modern construction reduced much of that complexity through standardization. Digital fabrication has altered the equation again.

Harvard Graduate School of Design describes contemporary digital production as a continuum connecting modeling, simulation, generative design, automation, CNC equipment, robotics, advanced materials, and physical fabrication. These systems create new possibilities for part customization and complex material assemblies while retaining industrial methods of production. This matters for ornament because repetition no longer requires every component to be identical.

A façade panel can belong to a family of related components. Perforations can change according to solar exposure. Brick patterns can shift gradually. Metal fins can vary in depth. Precast panels can use multiple molds generated from a common digital model. CNC-cut formwork can create complex concrete relief. The architectural challenge is deciding when variation contributes something meaningful. Complexity is not automatically ornament, and ornament is not automatically architecture. Digital tools can produce enormous quantities of geometric information without producing a coherent building.

For owners, unnecessary variation can also increase coordination, fabrication, installation, replacement, and quality-control demands. The strongest use of digital ornament therefore establishes rules. A limited number of component families may produce considerable visual richness while remaining practical to manufacture. Variation can correspond to solar conditions, program, views, structural bays, or significant locations rather than changing arbitrarily. Digital fabrication makes expression more feasible. It does not eliminate the need for discipline.

Lantern House Shows How Expression Can Improve the Interior

Ornament is sometimes criticized as an exterior concern disconnected from the space behind it. Lantern House in Chelsea demonstrates another possibility. Heatherwick Studio developed the residential building around large, double-height bay windows framed by brick piers. The design intentionally contrasts with the flatter glass residential buildings that had appeared along the High Line, drawing instead from Victorian and Edwardian bay-window traditions.

The bay windows give the façade an immediately recognizable character, but their architectural effect extends inward. Because the glass projects beyond the primary façade line, rooms gain expanded views and a stronger spatial relationship with the city. Heatherwick describes the windows as giving the apartments both broad views and a more domestic character. Here the expressive element is also usable space. That is a useful standard for contemporary ornament.

A façade can become visually richer because it is responding more specifically to occupation. Deep windows can create places to sit. Screens can provide privacy or shade. Balconies can animate an elevation while extending living space. Recesses can protect openings from direct sun or rain. Structural components can become part of the exterior rhythm.

This does not mean every ornamental element needs a measurable performance function. Architecture also communicates culturally and visually. But when expression and occupation reinforce one another, the architectural argument becomes stronger and the element may be easier to defend through the development process.

Some Buildings Are Returning to Ornament Explicitly

Other contemporary projects are much less hesitant about using the word ornament. The Fitzroy, designed by Roman and Williams in Chelsea, is clad in dark green terra cotta with copper, brass, and bronze detailing. The architects describe the building as deliberately continuing the expressive architectural tradition interrupted by the rise of abstraction in the twentieth century.

The scale of the effort is substantial. Roman and Williams reports that 170 different custom terra-cotta profiles were developed for the façade, including cornices, fluting, brackets, dormer elements, and other shaped components.

This is much closer to traditional architectural ornament than the recessed brick arches of 64 University Place. Both projects are useful precisely because they demonstrate that there is no single contemporary ornamental style. One building can achieve expression through a restrained system of depth and masonry. Another can deliberately embrace elaborate profiles and historic architectural associations.

The owner decision is consequently not whether a project should "have ornament." It is what degree of architectural expression is appropriate to its program, market, context, construction system, and intended identity. A boutique residential building may support a level of material specificity that would be difficult to justify across a much larger commercial façade. A cultural building may use ornament to communicate public identity. A high-rise may rely on a repeatable module visible from multiple distances.

Ornament Has to Work at Several Distances

A successful expressive façade is rarely perceived from only one viewpoint. From far away, massing, silhouette, major openings, setbacks, and large-scale patterns dominate. From across the street, window proportions, façade depth, piers, arches, fins, balconies, and material changes become visible.

At the sidewalk, joints, texture, craftsmanship, entrances, hardware, soffits, storefronts, and the way materials meet the hand and eye become more important. Traditional architecture often managed these scales through hierarchical systems of ornament. Cornices addressed the skyline. Window surrounds organized the elevation. Carving and masonry joints rewarded closer inspection. Contemporary buildings can use a similar hierarchy without copying historical styles.

One Vanderbilt's tapering massing operates at the skyline scale, while its terra-cotta spandrels provide a smaller material rhythm. 64 University Place uses large arches to organize the elevation, then relies on individual hand-set brick and deeply raked joints at close range. Lantern House uses projecting bay windows as both a large façade motif and an interior-scale spatial element.

For owners, this is an argument for reviewing design at multiple scales. A distant rendering can make an expressive façade appear successful while hiding awkward joints or repetitive details at street level. A material sample can demonstrate texture while saying nothing about how the system organizes a twenty-story elevation. Elevations, perspectives, physical samples, wall sections, full-scale mockups, and fabrication drawings answer different questions.

Expression Creates Maintenance Obligations

More elaborate façades introduce responsibilities that should be understood before construction. Projections collect water differently from flat surfaces. Deep profiles create additional corners and joints. Masonry and terra cotta require attachment systems. Metal finishes can weather. Custom components may need replacement decades after their original fabrication.

New York owners face an additional practical context. The city's Façade Inspection and Safety Program requires periodic inspection of exterior walls and appurtenances on buildings greater than six stories. Ornament, cornices, masonry, terra cotta, balconies, and other exterior components therefore become part of a long-term inspection and maintenance environment. This does not make expressive façades inherently problematic.

Many historic masonry and terra-cotta buildings have survived for generations precisely because their materials are durable and repairable. Conversely, apparently simple curtain walls can require substantial maintenance involving sealants, gaskets, coatings, glazing units, anchors, and access systems. The relevant issue is whether the façade has been designed for its full service life.

Owners should understand how components are attached, how they can be accessed, whether individual pieces can be replaced, how water drains, what finishes require maintenance, and whether fabrication records will remain useful for future repair. An ornamented building still has to be a maintainable building.

Expression Can Carry Commercial Value, but It Should Not Be Reduced to Branding

The renewed interest in expressive architecture is particularly visible in competitive residential markets. KPF reports that 64 University Place sold nearly all of its units within ten days of entering the market. The architect attributes the project more broadly to a combination of context, craft, façade design, interior quality, private outdoor space, and residential planning, so the sales performance cannot reasonably be assigned to ornament alone. Still, the project illustrates a larger development issue. When multiple buildings offer similar unit types, amenities, glazing, appliances, and locations, architecture can become a form of differentiation.

A recognizable façade can make a project easier to identify in photography, marketing, skyline views, and the experience of arrival. Material richness can also support a perception of permanence that may be valuable in residential, hospitality, cultural, and institutional projects. The risk is treating expression as branding applied after the building has been designed. When ornament becomes a superficial marketing exercise, it can produce arbitrary motifs disconnected from structure, interiors, context, or construction. Those elements are especially vulnerable to value engineering because removing them has little effect on the building itself. Expression becomes more durable when it is embedded in the architecture.

Owners Should Establish the Façade's Architectural Logic Early

The return of ornament creates opportunities, but it also makes early façade decisions more important. An owner does not need to decide during concept design exactly how every brick or terra-cotta unit will be fabricated. The project does need to establish what gives the building its identity. Is it the depth of the windows? The masonry bond? A repeating arch? A vertical fin system? Balconies? Structural expression? A ceramic profile? A pattern that changes with orientation? A distinctive base or crown? Once that hierarchy is understood, the team can identify which elements are essential and which remain flexible. That distinction becomes particularly important during cost evaluation.

If the architecture depends on a six-inch-deep window surround, reducing it to two inches may change both performance and appearance. If a façade contains twenty custom profiles but similar expression could be achieved with six, rationalization may preserve the concept while reducing fabrication complexity. Mockups can help resolve these questions before they become construction problems.

For masonry, terra cotta, precast concrete, metal panels, screens, or other articulated systems, a full-scale mockup can reveal depth, shadow, color variation, joints, tolerances, corner conditions, workmanship, and transitions that renderings cannot fully communicate. The objective is not maximum decoration. It is enough architectural specificity to make the building coherent, identifiable, constructible, and appropriate to its context.

The Return of Ornament Reflects a Broader Change in Architectural Priorities

Contemporary ornament is returning because several architectural concerns are converging. There is renewed interest in buildings that respond visibly to context rather than appearing interchangeable between cities. Material craft has regained importance as architects reconsider the dominance of smooth glass envelopes. Digital fabrication has made controlled variation and custom components more practical. Developers in competitive markets are seeking architectural distinction. Façade performance increasingly encourages depth, shading, opacity, and layered assemblies.

Architectural education is also revisiting the subject directly. Harvard GSD's current study of architecture and construction explicitly identifies the contemporary return of ornament alongside digital fabrication, artificial intelligence, environmental concerns, materials, and tectonics as part of a changing relationship between design and construction. The timing is significant.

Ornament is returning in an architectural culture equipped with technologies radically different from those that produced Beaux-Arts stone carving or Sullivan's cast iron. Contemporary designers have parametric modeling, CNC fabrication, robotic manufacturing, unitized façades, high-performance glazing, rainscreens, digital surveying, and advanced ceramic production. The result does not need to resemble historical ornament. The more consequential shift is the acceptance that buildings can once again communicate through surface, depth, material, pattern, craft, and recognizable form without abandoning modern construction or environmental performance.

For owners, the decision should begin before a decorative vocabulary is selected. The project team should determine where expression can reinforce the building's program, context, material system, performance, and construction logic. When those relationships are established early, ornament can become part of the architecture rather than an expense added to its surface. Daniel Inocente Architecture D.P.C. can work with owners and development teams to evaluate façade expression, material systems, architectural identity, and constructability as part of the broader design process.

Sources

Cambridge University Press / Architectural History
Criminal Skins: Tattoos and Modern Architecture in the Work of Adolf Loos
Cambridge study on Adolf Loos and Ornament and Crime

The Art Institute of Chicago
From Drawing to Cast: Louis Sullivan and the Development of Architectural Ornament
Art Institute of Chicago on Sullivan's ornament

The Art Institute of Chicago
Louis H. Sullivan
Louis Sullivan collection and architectural history

Chicago Architecture Center
Sullivan Center
Sullivan Center architectural documentation

Kohn Pedersen Fox
64 University Place
64 University Place project documentation

Kohn Pedersen Fox
520 Fifth Avenue
520 Fifth Avenue project documentation

Roman and Williams
The Fitzroy
The Fitzroy project documentation

Heatherwick Studio
Lantern House
Lantern House project documentation

Kohn Pedersen Fox
One Vanderbilt
One Vanderbilt project documentation

Harvard Graduate School of Design
Material Systems: Digital Production
Harvard GSD on digital production and fabrication

Harvard Graduate School of Design
Architecture and Construction: From the Vitruvian Tradition to the Digital
Harvard GSD on construction and the contemporary return of ornament

University of Chicago Press / Art Institute of Chicago
A System of Architectural Ornament: Facsimile Edition and Reader's Guide
Louis Sullivan's System of Architectural Ornament

FAQ

Why is ornament returning to architecture?

Several developments are contributing to the return of ornament and architectural expression. Digital fabrication makes customized components easier to produce, architects are reconsidering uniform glass façades, material craft has regained attention, and developers often want buildings with stronger identities. Contemporary ornament also increasingly overlaps with functional elements such as shading, window depth, balconies, screens, and façade modules.

Is contemporary ornament the same as historical decoration?

Usually not. Historical ornament often included carving, moldings, sculpture, relief, and recognizable decorative motifs. Contemporary ornament can include those techniques, but it can also emerge from brick patterns, recessed windows, terra-cotta profiles, perforated screens, structural rhythm, façade depth, material texture, or digitally fabricated components.

Does an expressive façade cost more?

It can, but there is no reliable universal premium. Cost depends on material, repetition, number of unique components, fabrication method, attachment system, labor, installation sequence, project scale, procurement, and market conditions. A repeated custom module can be much more economical than hundreds of individually unique pieces. Cost should therefore be studied with the façade system rather than estimated from appearance alone.

Can ornament improve building performance?

Some expressive façade elements can perform environmental or spatial functions. Deep window surrounds and fins can provide shading, screens can control solar exposure or privacy, bay windows can expand views and usable interior space, and opaque articulated surfaces can contribute to a better-performing envelope. These benefits depend on the specific geometry, orientation, material, and assembly.

When should ornament and façade expression be designed?

The main architectural logic should be established during concept and schematic design. Window proportions, façade depth, structural relationships, material systems, repetition, and major patterns can affect floor plans, structure, daylight, envelope performance, fabrication, and cost. Detailed profiles and fabrication methods can continue to develop later, but postponing the basic expression can make it difficult to integrate with the rest of the building.