Pugin and Ruskin: Moralizing Ornamentation

A building that honestly expresses its structure. Buttresses genuinely resist thrust, roof trusses are exposed, materials retain their natural color without pretense, and ornamentation grows out of structural components rather than being applied. Color comes from the inherent differences in materials, not paint. This is the approach advocated by 19th-century reformers: ornamentation must have a structural reason. Avoid: making buttresses into purely decorative false columns; using paint to imitate stone and wood; applying ornamentation to planes unrelated to the structure; hiding all structural components.

Translated from Chinese by AI.

一棟把結構誠實表現出來的建築。扶壁真的在抵抗推力、屋架真的外露、材料維持本色不做假,裝飾長在結構構件上而不是貼上去的。彩色來自材料本身的差異,不是塗料。這是十九世紀改革者主張的做法:裝飾必須有構造上的理由。避免:把扶壁做成純裝飾的假柱、用塗料模仿石材與木材、把裝飾貼在與結構無關的平面上、隱藏所有的結構構件。