Between Tiles and Grilles, Between Art and Architecture: Ornament in the City and on the Border

Abstract

This paper presents a part of my doctoral research "Urban ornament: an inventory of ornamental railings in Belo Horizonte (and other beauties)" according with the study of houses that combine ornamental railings and tiles, which I called "Patchwork Houses". The curious thing is that those tiles are often found in kitchens or bathrooms, reinforcing a kind of improvisation status. As a methodology, I attempt to approach the object through notions that matter, concomitantly, to the critical fields of Art and Architecture. In constant contact throughout their history, these fields are seen here as reflexive machines, increasing reflections about the complex temporality of cities, superposed modes of living and inhabiting, the imagination as an alternative to oblivion. By conseguinte, the facade is seen here as a border between the private and domestic space, abble to do emerge senses of mobility and porosity, both in relation to the presence of ornament in the city today, as about ways of accessing the object theoretically. For both, text and city, is important to identify or claim a poetic view, that if one side can point to a seemingly arbitrary scientific approach, on the other hand can expand the possibilities of understanding and experience them.