The Ornament of Wit. Setting Kant’s «Faculty of Assimilating» to Work

The article argues for an architectural mode that can introduce comic moments into the built environment without jeopardizing the genuine qualities of architecture as a permanent artefact shaping and defining space—namely, the ornament. Drawing on observations regarding the interplay between structure and sign in ‘architecture parlante’, as well as the ornamental genres of the Grotesque and the Rocaille, the study posits that a productive interaction between ingenuity and jest can be understood in Kantian terms as being dependent on the ‘faculty of assimilating’. In its ornamental manifestation, this method opens up new dimensions of invention and playfulness within architecture, exemplified by contemporary designs by Gustav Peichl and Herzog and de Meuron.