DSDN 171 assignment 3

Owen Jones argued in his book The Grammar of Ornament (1856) that "Construction should be decorated.  Decoration should never be constructed."  What Jones meant when he said this is that when you design an object, you should firstly design its structure in relation to its function, then decorate this structure, not make an object purely for aesthetic because in his opinion it does not cause great design.  I agree with this idea as designing something based entirely on it aesthetic rather than its function can cause the intuition behind what an object is and how it works.


An example of design that has been constructed can be seen in the above example.  This is a gas lamp designed in the 19th century, it is however not immediately obvious that this is what its purpose is meant to be.
From the look of the object I believed at first that it was just an ornament that looked nice but had no real purpose.  If I had not been told otherwise I would have probably gone on believing this for a very long time.  This is why Jones wanted designers to first think about the use of an object and design accordingly then add the decoration after so that people are not buying objects which while do have a use, are not being used as they have no immediately apparent use except looking nice.