Chainmaking: A Note on Ornament, Intelligence, and Building Robert Kirkbride Published online: 3 June 2009 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009 Abstract For the past fifteen-odd years, I’ve investigated the mutual influences of thinking and making, and their impact on design and learning. This article reflects on the traditional role of architectural ornament in equipping a mind with metaphors for wisdom and methods for learning. It then considers the reappearance of an ancient memory technique as an organizational metaphor in the design of a new, forward-looking university building, as foreshadowing to the companion article “Chainbuilding.” Keywords Memory . Forgetting . Chains . Ornament . Architecture . Identity Part One: Then The power of architecture and what is called ‘the built environment’ is that few see it for what it is: a form of education. —David Orr (2006), Design on the Edge,7 Can it be that the memory is not present to itself in its own right but only by means of an image of itself? —Augustine (1961), Confessions, 10.15 When I was very young, probably seven or eight, I invented a game for myself. While falling asleep, I would allow my mind to drift, and at a certain point attempt to reel my thoughts back in, retracing the sequence of improbable connections. I don’t quite recall whether the game was intended to make me drowsy or to keep me awake: sometimes I fell asleep while retracing my steps, at others I became obsessed with recapturing an elusive synaptic leap or was carried away by the endless possibilities… Little did I know that I was playing a variation on a very old memory game, the pedagogical exercise of concatenation, or chainmaking. As a metaphor for mnemonic training, the chain by its interlocking design calls to mind an accumulation of associations Int J Polit Cult Soc (2009) 22:191–200 DOI 10.1007/s10767-009-9053-0 R. Kirkbride (*) Product Design Department, Parsons The New School for Design, New York, NY 10011, USA e-mail: kirkbrir@newschool.edu