JEWELLERY AND ARCHITECTURE
Architecture has not only a utilitarian function, but it has the possibility of the existential and metaphysical meditation of space, matter, gravity, criteria and light. It can be understood that the architecture of the space is the one that dwells the body, but the body is the place where resides jewellery. The first provides limited space and the second represents the space that limits us to the body. I found out that some jewellery artists are using the mentality of architecture, its rules and relationships in their artistic practice in two ways. Many architects manufactured jewellery, which is by their form,content and spirit of the time a kind of micro-architecture. On the other and, there are many jewellery artists who are close to architectural design practice, and consequently many pieces of architectonic jewellery are produced. Architectonic jewellery is not necessarily the jewellery that was designed by architects exclusively, although many architects devised the jewellery in this style (Josef Hoffmann, Gerrit Rietveld, Alvar Aalto, Frank Gehry, Charles Jencks and others). Architectonic jewellery can be defined as a line of artistic jewellery, which has evolved from the modernist movement and its foundations originate from the thinking of the Bauhaus Manifesto.
Ornament as a decoration, with its appearance and existence from the beginning of the formation and development of culture, has an important role in the artistic jewellery. Examining the ornament is a key aspect in the artistic jewellery, where we can distinguish two aspects. First, the ornament acts as a fully self-contained object, and secondly, the ornament is repeated in such a way to form a pattern. The ornament as decoration, made of different materials, represents different styles and motives. It is intended for architecture, applied art or art, where it is viewed as something extra, such light-mindedness without reason or function. Return towards ornamentation in postmodernism is the answer to the extremes of its denial in modernism. Its strength lies in the fact that it is essential to establish a sensory perception within a certain framework of architecture or jewellery.
Photo: Miran Kambič