“Form follows function" - what is your point of view???

[jocon]

“Form follows function—that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.”
—Frank Lloyd Wright

What is it really mean???

[Trygr]

I really shouldn't get on this forum when I am drunk.

It means that they are one in the same thing. Read the F-ing quote.

Sorry.

[alexneverhurts]

This means you can't design a theater-look library and vise versa.

[birgco]

jocon, It is an excellent question. While I don't claim to be an expert on Wright, it is worth to pose the question even if it only causes others to learn more about his remarkable theory, philosophy, style and execution. If you read about him and also manage to watch a PBS special (produced a few years back) on his life and work, it will give you some insight into his genius. When you see how he integrated some of his residential (and commercial) projects into the environment, you begin to understand a bit what he was talking about. I regard Wright in the same company as Lennon(John), Einstein, and DaVinci.

[babarebaba]

[birgco]

ok, i'm going to take a stab at this, here goes......I think what Wright was saying when he said form and function should be one, was not literally that they should be one, but a spiritual union (as the quote says). If a man and woman marry, it is a physical and spritual union. They become one, but they are not physically blended together or attached at the hip. They retain their individuality/identity but they enhance each other. Similarily, when Wright designed and constructed a building (let's say on a mountain) he didn't expect the structure to become one with the mountain. Rather, the structure would maintain its identity but hopefully enhance the majesty of the natural environment but still announce to the world the presence of humankind. If you study his remarkable Johnson's Wax Building (1932), it's a great example of bringing man/woman and the environment/nature closer together and in a setting (office building) that most people of the time would have considered incongruous. Wright was a true pioneer. I find it incredible that he designed the roof windows (skylights) of the Wax Building without the technology to properly seal them. The skylights leaked but Johnson loved the building so much that he overlooked the interior precipitation!

[The Architect]

In my world of Architecture on the world's stage, no one else embodied John Donne's immortal words "No man is an island..." as did Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright could absorb - digest - and then spew back out - something which his limited imagination could never originaly conceive. If anything, Wright was a great interpreter of the world's idealisms - and to a certain extent he was a great exploiter [The work of Richard Neutra first comes to mind.]

Frank was a true architectural charlatan - and void of original Architectural understanding.

To get behind that phrase...

[lekizz]

Nice one, The Architect, thank goodness someone here can talk sense

[birgco]

[lekizz]

I read The Architect's contribution and it did not appear 'smart alec' to me. S/he is simply advising you not to take the words of 'great' architects as timeless, or applicable today without question as if 90 years had not elapsed.

Any attempt to pick apart the superficial semantics of a sentence, without understanding its context, is a waste of time IMO.

And we all have different opinions here, birgo, don't resort to name-calling just because you disagree with (or don't understand) someone.

[birgco]

Just trying to make a point with a little humor......
and btw, what are you, the "muscle" for the Architect???


Remember.....
It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice!

[AP]

Just reading this thread, thought it might be worth my adding that the original quote was not, was never "form follows function". Everyone who writes it perpetuates a minor error which, were architecture more academic, would have been eliminated already. Sullivan's quote is "form ever follows function", which is always quoted without the context, which is as follows

[birgco]

Now you see, AP...... your comments are refreshing. You make an opening statement, back it up with a supporting fact..... and then sum up with your conclusion. Bravo, I say!!!!!!

Take note you really, really smart guys. This is the way to have a discussion/argument/opinion on this forum.......and you should have learned this in the 7th grade.......and while I'm thinkin about it, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull said "no man is an island",
first!!!!

[The Architect]

No Man is an Island

No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls
it tolls for thee.

-- John Donne (1572-1631)

*********************************************

Just a wee bit before Jethro Tull - eh?

Smart guy.


Take care...

[birgco]

Dear Sir and/or Madam,
You obviously did not think the Tull quote was funny...... but here's a something that may help you.
In a recent Architecture DesignCommunity Forum Survey, 99.9% of respondents (18 -34 years old)
thought the Jethro Tull line was indeed,
(well maybe not funny), but they did feel it was mildly amusing.......