Notes on Kitsch in Architecture. An Illusion or an Ersatz of Happiness?

Abstract

The article deals with kitsch in architecture. The term ‘kitsch’, which originally referred to images, is nowadays also used in the evaluation of architecture, especially in terms of its authenticity. This entails the consideration of the physical scale associated with an important function of architecture, to wit fulfilling the users’ needs. As a starting point for the reflection serves the thought of Kurt W. Forster, identifying kitsch, including its architectural iteration, as an illusion of a better life inherent in people’s dreams and desires, which may at the same time be the cause of various architectural borrowings. It is claimed that in architecture, due to its scale and utility, an illusion cannot supplant genuine fulfillment of the user’s basic needs, therefore, it can only exist for a relatively short time either leading to the emergence of its form, or it may be solidified against reality as a useless replica, serving no function meeting the needs of its users. Such sort of kitsch can be discovered in those works of architecture in which people spend too short a time for them to require kitsch to answer their basic needs. A prolonged experience of architectural kitsch deepens a person’s feeling of sadness and irritation resulting from a sense of failure to fulfill one’s dreams or even real needs. Whereas, if an illusion only serves as a cause for the creation of a work of architecture – later disappearing when its form is executed, though based upon borrowings it remains useful (for instance regarded as a theatre decoration, meeting the need for beauty and/ or a multi-sensory experience of architecture) – it can no longer be classified as architectural kitsch, i.e. as an illusion. Accordingly, ornament may also escape being seen as kitsch, if it helps convert an illusion into an ersatz of happiness.