In the early twentieth century, Modernists problematised ornament in their refashioning of architecture for the industrial age. Today, architects are formulating different responses to image and its (re)production in the information age. In both discourses of ornament and image, surfaces are often the perpetrators: visual boundaries that facilitate false appearances, imprisoning humanity in a shadowy cave of illusion. The negativity and shallowness associated with superficiality is also closely related to the separation of images from the real, where the former is seen to be a deficient representation of the latter. Such views follow a familiar metaphysical model characterised by the opposition between inside and outside and the opaque boundary that acts as a barrier. This model determines the traditional philosophical approach, which follows a distinct hierarchical order and a perpendicular movement of thought that seeks to penetrate appearances to get to the essence of things.