Földes Mária: Ornamentation - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1993)
a role just as important as that of architecture itself, whereas in others it was relegated to the background to allow the clear structure of the building to dominate. There are also examples where the sculptural decoration can almost be seen as relief work in its own right, not related to the architecture either in form or in content. The 19th century saw important changes in sculptural ornamentation. Mew technologies in architecture, revolutionary innovations together with new types of building material, rendered superfluous the columns, capitals, atlases, caryatids, consoles and buttresses, which had formerly been structurally essential supports besides carrying sculptural decoration. And yet these features continued to appear standing next to entrance- doors underneath balconies, or as elements articulating facades. However, they had become pieces of scenery with no structural function. Decorative art at the turn of the century was in search of new direction and new areas of expression. As its function no longer delimited its form, sculptural decoration was now free to grow. Luxuriant floral decoration covering entire facades, geometrical string-mouldings, stylized motifs, coloured majolica and tile face work, glass and mosaic pictures, wrought iron balcony balustrades and gate railings made up the sculptural decoration at the turn of the century. The boundaries between sculpture and applied arts became blurred as the two permeated each other in this fine and imaginative architecture of a particularly high quality. The period cannot be described with an all-embracing stylistic term. Torrents of Art Nouveau floral decoration cascaded down pseudo-historical buildings decorated with oriental motifs, and next to the muscular atlases and caryatids between the windows of neo- Renaissance and neo-Baroque palaces there appear masks and female heads more characteristic of Art Nouveau. Among the decorative and often gaudy buildings forerunners of modernism appear as we approach the end of this turn-of-the-century period. These functional, logically constructed houses and villas, decorated with stylized or geometric ornamentation without any superfluous picturesque details, stand out with the serenity and clarity of their architectural design. It 8
