Ornament or Crime?

Beauty is a vibration that flows through the senses and absorbs us. It might seem ephemeral, too subjective to be named. And yet, we need it to support our lives. A place ceases to be mere space when we experience it. So it is with beauty: it welcomes us, guides us, moves us. We hear it in nature, taste it in a dish, sing it in the shower, and walk through it barefoot on a sun-drenched terrace in spring.

On Tiptoe

We don’t know this space; we are living it for the first time. It’s a new place and, even as we enter it on tiptoe, hesitantly, we sense its flavour — sweet and slightly spiced. A sense of warm security pervades us.

Can we call it synaesthesia?

To hear the sound of colours, smell the scent of words, taste the shapes and spaces — it’s possible. Synaesthesia is where the senses meet, and beauty has always had the power to evoke it.

In his essay Ornament and Crime, Adolf Loos described decoration as an obstacle to progress. One can only imagine what he would say about us today, who need beauty in order to live — and to live well.

Beauty is essential

The beauty of our spaces — personal, professional, emotional — of the architectural environments where we spend our time and our emotions, is a fundamental need for our wellbeing.

We return to the places where we were happy for one simple reason: we want more of it. We need to be inspired, comforted, even spiritually uplifted. And so, we return.

Architecture shelters, channels, filters, brings together, and disperses. But its emotional competence should never be underestimated, especially in the design phase.

Spaces hold, evoke feelings, identities, values. Architecture contributes to creating a sense of belonging and participation in a social ecosystem. Designing spaces, entire centres, and cities without considering human happiness is no longer acceptable.

Adolf, we’re sorry. But not really. Because this very absence is the civil regression you warned us about back in 1908.

Beauty is a noble value, and those who try to reduce it to mere aesthetics, something fleeting or frivolous, do not thrive in this world. As said, we need beauty because we are made of it and surrounded by it. Every person has their own; they acquire new beauty constantly, share it, and create it. Yes, they also destroy it — more often than we’d like — but beauty regenerates, somehow, magically. It is in its nature to be reborn and to exist, until the end of time.

If you can’t exalt it, elevate it

What can a “simple” floor know about beauty, design, or ornament? That humble element, often overlooked, lies at the foundation of much upward evolution.

Its ennoblement has quietly turned it into a respectful protagonist of space — the embodiment, layer after layer, mistake after mistake, of materials and souls, common and precious, practical and noble — blending performance with aesthetic value.

If you can’t hide it, celebrate it. That’s what design history teaches us.

And if celebrating it is not enough — elevate it. That’s what we did.

So that the spaces we design can be happy, from the very beginning.

The value of design

We didn’t know this space — but we lived it, once. At first, it was just a new place, unknown, untouched. But then something changed: we felt at home.

The colour of the north wall, the filtered light through a wide window, the clean, linear design. The feel of the floor under our feet, the chill of marble, the warmth of wood, the softness of cork.

A dialogue with our senses blossomed, gave the story direction, and made our mouths water — as if before a stew in blueberry sauce with sweet potatoes, whose skin lifts just slightly.

The value of design is synaesthesia, silent, between what we see, feel, support. Live.

Text byChiara Foffano – Illustrations by Ariele Pirona