Rivestimento vs Travestimento. Note sul ruolo della decorazione in architettura

It's been more than a hundred years since Adolf Loos wrote Ornament and crime1, a text apparently prohibitionist, moralistic, with an economic background, still considered crucial to understand the importance of relationship between architecture and decoration. Against any kind of affectation, Loos is launching a battle against the ornament – or better against the ornament abuse – most visible and representative expression of a deep crisis of historicism. Taking simply nineteenth-century theory on textile origin of architecture developed by Gottfried Semper2, he highlights the difference between two types of coating: one born to "reveal" or "mask" the architectural structure. “I Bekleidung and Verkleidung concepts, translatable respectively with the terms coating and disguise, have always been subject of debate on relationship between architectural envelope and decoration and are basis of a yield issue even more relevant today [...] in the changed technical and technological horizon”3. The paper provides an insight on contemporary world, through the analysis of theoretical contributions and projects that which can demonstrate the importance of decoration today, an essential element of architectural design.