Cartouche (design)

The cartouche is generally rectangular, delimited by a molding or one or more incised lines, with two symmetrical trapezoids on the lateral edges.

Most have the usual look of a symmetrical oval with scrolls developed during the Renaissance and Baroque periods, but some are highly stylized, showing the diversity of styles popular over time.

They reappear later in some Postmodernism, a movement that questioned Modernism (the status quo after WW2), and which promoted the inclusion of elements of historic styles in new designs.

He tried to include in his own buildings qualities that he described as 'inclusion, inconsistency, compromise, accommodation, adaptation, superadjacency, equivalence, multiple focus, juxtaposition, or good and bad space.

Multiple Postmodern architects and designers put simplified reinterpretations of the elements found in Classical decoration on their creations.