CPCL Vol. 8, no 1. Call for Papers. Exceeding architecture: ornament and ruins

CPCL Vol. 8, no 1. Call for Papers

Exceeding architecture: ornament and ruins

The European Journal of Creative Practices in Cities and Landscapes, Vol. 8, no. 1.

Edited by Pierpaolo Ascari, Andrea Borsari, Jörg Gleiter, Annalisa Trentin

Download a PDF version of this call.

This issue aims to explore two emblematic dimensions of surplus in architecture: ornament, as an expression of formal richness that exceeds structural function, and ruin, as a residue that survives the fall of utility, inscribing the work in the passage of time and collective memory. Far from being mere anomalies or marginal details, ornaments and ruins challenge canonical definitions of architecture, opening up critical spaces for reflection on aesthetics, temporality, ideology, and power.

How does ornament exceed function and become meaning? How does ruin interrogate narratives of progress, preservation, and oblivion? What do these “excesses,” “surpluses,” “overflows,” and “exceeds” reveal about the nature of architecture itself? What is their relationship to the sphere of desire and its implications within architectural discourse?

In his essay on ornament, Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy traces, with his characteristic aptitude for comparing Western and Eastern traditions, the genealogy of two contrasting conceptions of ornament: one rooted in the rhetorical tradition, viewing ornament as the addition of attributes necessary for defining human-made objects; the other emphasizing a profound connection between ornament and the inherent order of matter itself. This duality resonates with a central concern of 20th-century architectural thought—the poetic dimension of the constructive act, the desire for matter to be ‘transmuted’ within us.

Similarly, in his Diario de bordo (1960), Fernando Távora, engaged in an intimate critique of the U.S. capitalist-imperialist development model and its cultural impacts on Europe, cites Francisco de Hollanda: “ornament is whatever one neglects to do.” This aphorism invokes an idea of design that, while marginalized in mainstream narratives, posits sacrifice as a fundamental, even ornamental, act. Here, ornamentation becomes not an act of addition but of subtraction—a suspension of design, a retreat of authorship in response to material demands, collaborative input, or the needs of future inhabitants.

The ruin, with its gradual erasure of original identity and authorial intention, emerges as a visible process of sacrifice—not an ending, but a potential new beginning. Simultaneously, contemporary cities overloaded with signs, decorations, and spectacular installations form a commodity landscape, shaped by tourism and commercial interests. At the other extreme, urban spaces marked by abandonment—suburbs, derelict buildings, debris—become aesthetic and symbolic terrains that demand new critical readings of the contemporary urban experience.

Moreover, ornament and ruin become central figures for thinking about environmental and social transformation in the age of the Anthropocene. In a time of ecological instability, abandoned or hyper-ornamented architecture can be interpreted as traces, redundancies, or survivals—artifacts of material overproduction and ecological excess. Ruins are no longer confined to the past but are embedded in a ruinous present; ornaments become ambiguous, expressing both symbolic resistance and aesthetic inertia.

From this vantage point, the issue seeks to investigate the historical and theoretical articulations of ornament within the logic of late capitalism, particularly how postmodernism has thematized excess through the return of decorum, the citation of historical forms, and irony as critical or ideological responses to modernity. Likewise, it examines how the concept of ruin has evolved—from solemn reminders of human vanity to programmed obsolescence and the aesthetics of debris.

We invite contributions that engage these reflections through theoretical, historical, aesthetic, social, or interdisciplinary perspectives, addressing topics such as:

• Theories of ornament: from Adolf Loos to the present— historical and conceptual analyses of architectural ornament, from its modernist denunciations to its contemporary reevaluations.
• Ruins as aesthetic, political, or memorial devices— how ruins are interpreted, represented, and employed to construct identities, narratives, or critiques.
• Architecture and temporality: permanence, decay, transformation— the tension between conservation and the inevitability of transformation and abandonment.
• Decoration and ideology— ornament as an expression of power, taste, and ideology across contexts.
• Ornament, ruins, and desire— psychological and philosophical dimensions, including the aesthetics of the sublime and the disciplinary function of ornament’s repression.
• Excess and otherness— postcolonial, gendered, and queer readings of architectural surplus as expressions of otherness and resistance.
• Contemporary ruins and urban wreckage— abandonment, obsolescence, and incomplete architectures as emerging aesthetic and political forms.
• The ornamental and ruined landscapes— urban scale manifestations of decoration and decay as reflections of commodification, tourism, and deindustrialization.
• Biological parallels— vestiges and superfluous traits in evolution as analogs to architectural ornament and ruin.
• Postmodernism and ornament— the return of ornament through citation and irony as critique of modernist essentialism.
• Natural history of ruins and ‘ruin thinking’— philosophical and historical reflections on ruins from the Enlightenment to the Anthropocene, framing them as tools for navigating catastrophe.
• Ornament and ruin in the Anthropocene— waste, resilience, and environmental imaginaries as they relate to architectural surplus.
• Cultural representations— appearances of ornament and ruin in literature, painting, cinema, television, and graphic novels, from romantic ruins to baroque excess.
• Ornament as grammar vs. ornament as matter— reflections on ornament’s dual function as both surface embellishment and intrinsic order.
• Ornament, ruin, and sacrifice— the suspension of authorship and design as an ornamental act.

We welcome theoretical essays, case studies, interdisciplinary analyses, visual contributions, and nonfiction experiments that explore these liminal figures—ornament and ruin—not as opposites, but as interdependent expressions of architecture’s surplus, its desires, and its engagement with time, memory, and meaning.

CPCL accepts full papers, written in English, with a maximum of 6,000 words, including footnotes and bibliography.

Participating in the shaping of this issue and subsequent issues of the Aesthetics series are : Scientific Board | Pierandrea Amato, Pierpaolo Ascari, Andrea Borsari, Stefano Catucci, Filippo Fimiani, Jörg H. Gleiter, Elena Tavani, Matteo Vegetti, Silvia Vizzardelli; Editorial Staff | Aurosa Alison, Francesco Di Maio, Daniel Finch-Race, Elena Girelli, Zeno Mutton, Claudia Nigrelli.

Manuscripts should be submitted online at cpcl.unibo.it

CPCL does not accept e-mail submissions.

For more information, consult our focus and scope and author guidelines.

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CPCL Vol. 8, no. 1   Timeline

July 2025                                Launch of Call

10 December 2025              Deadline for paper submission