Form Doesn't Follow Function
Pseudodionysius ·
October 8, 2012 at 3:05am
For those of you following the fascinating architecture thread Whither The Arts? that Dave Carter inadvertently started today, here's a counterpoint for those who think modernist architecture is benign and says little about our present tense culture. The video features famous classical architect Allan Greenberg in The Language of Form.
And, after watching it, think of what would happen if every historic American building in Washington were leveled tomorrow and replaced with a modernist construction. Food for thought.
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Jul '12
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
Never forget that available building materials trump form, function, aesthetics and anything else that one can come up with. Had the classic builders steel or trusses, I don't think, for 1 second, that the old cathedrals would look as they do. Form follows function yada yada yada... We build with the materials and designs that are available at the time. Remember that the Roman arch (the basis of basillicas and domes) was a previous design of the Etruscans that they used for God knows what (I am not so learned). After a time, some refine the practical design into an artform. It isn't intrinsic to the Renaissance or Gothic periods. We are simply too close to our design forms to see the art in them
Dec '10
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
I'd rather imagine that every modernist construction was leveled and replaced with a classical one. Humor me?
Sep '10
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
Who put the Goth in Gotham city?
Jul '12
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
Who put Bau in the Bau Ba Bau Bauhaus.
Jun '10
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
I can't get the formatting right, but you don't have to think about it, Pseud.
HUD, 1968
FBI, 1975
Best of all, 2010 "The New Federal Building was part of the General Services Administration’s Design and Construction Excellence Program. The project had to be approved by the National Capital Planning Commission and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, both of which oversee the design of major facilities in and around Washington, D.C."
Now, if all the historic buildings were removed at once (like today), by about 2025, the New Washington Design Commission will have developed a Plan of Action - "which takes into account the interests of all national stakeholders, noting especially the needs of previously underserved, unrepresented, underrepresented, misrepresented and marginalized communities, and reflects the equality of importance of ...(+ ~500 more words in the introduction)"
My mind is incapable of conceiving the results visually.
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
Eeyore: ...
Now, if all the historic buildings were removed at once (like today), by about 2025, the New Washington Design Commission will have developed a Plan of Action - "which takes into account the interests of all national stakeholders, noting especially the needs of previously underserved, unrepresented, underrepresented, misrepresented and marginalized communities, and reflects the equality of importance of ...(+ ~500 more words in the introduction)"
My mind is incapable of conceiving the results visually. · 3 minutes ago
And my mind is incapable of describing the results politely...
Edited on October 8, 2012 at 4:02amJun '12
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
Most excellent! Thank you, sir.
Jun '10
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
If someone designs plain square white boxes (offices or cubicles) within plain white square boxes (buildings) for you to work in, what do they think you are?
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I think America's older grand cathedrals and basilicas exist, in large part, because when they were built, many of the parishioners could still remember how churches looked and felt back in Europe. Beauty--traditional grand beauty--was still basic to the task. Build a box, and nobody would come.
Local example:
Basilica of Saint Mary, Minneapolis, Minnesota
http://gloria.tv/?media=312556
Feb '11
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
The function of a church is to inspire awe. Hence the Christian adaptation of the Roman basilica. If they had steel to build with rather than stone, the flying buttress would never have been invented, but the cathedrals would still soar and the alter would still be backlit by the rising sun.
The function of your cubical is to keep you focused on your uninspiring task. Our offices resemble hives to remind us that we are workers or drones.
D.C. is architecturally bi-polar: classical or modern. I prefer Chicago, with various designs of various materials from various eras. Change is good, provided you retain a historical context. My last office in Pittsburgh had a great view, but if all the other buildings had the same design, all I would have seen (apart from a bridge and a river) was glass reflecting reflective glass.
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
I too deeply admire classical architecture and have even been known to stand on the sidewalk with protest signs - against plans to demolish beautiful buildings. But, I also think art and to some extent architecture are ways of expressing the wishes, hopes, dreams - and anxieties of the time. Art allows us to express the ineffable. Part of the reason art turned modern in America, especially in the Jazz age, was to express the freneticism and turbulence of that new age in a way no other medium could. Some very ugly art, for example, expressed the uniquely modern horror of the "traffic accident." As much as it has been commercialized, Munch's The Scream still speaks to the turning point toward a totally different world - one that even more desperately needs inspiration from classical truths - yes - but one that also needs to express its anxieties.
Apr '12
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
The spirit is mediated to us through the material.
Churches can make your spirits soar, or at least bring more positive thinking.
Feb '11
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
It's all about a release of endorphins: You have them, it's beauty; you don't, it's not beauty. So what?
Feb '11
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
Frankly, I find classical architecture boring. Going to all the cathedrals in Europe, they just all look alike. And the main effect is to make the individual really, really small. Not unlike what Albert Speer and Hitler had planned with Germania, another never-built classical architecture project. The same criticisms (boring and making individual small) can be made of the glass and steel buildings and you would be right. I don't particularly care for either one.
Jun '10
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
Increasingly, as well, architecture is a means of reflecting...budget. Look at "The New Federal Building" in #5 above. Throwing a lot of boxes together in a manner pleasing to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts requires less engineering and fewer customized fabrications. You can put many more square feet under roof if your materials are primarily off-the-shelf.
Budget can also be heavily consumed using politically popular emergent "green" materials which often cost many times than of more traditional ones. That way, a lot of wishes, hopes and dreams disappear in the design stage, victims of monetary anxiety.
Edited on October 8, 2012 at 7:06pmMay '10
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
I think one problem with the modernist experiment--and more so, the post-modernist experiment--is a lack of appreciation for the degree to which an artistic grammar is an organic growth. Churches look like "churches" as the result of two millennia of architects and the public reacting to one another. We, the people, have had a say in what churches look like, and churches have had a say in what we think "church" is.
There's an urge to outflank Generation Y's distaste for church by holding spiritual conversations over cappucino in converted warehouses furnished with couches from Pottery Barn. This maneuver is doomed, I think. (But let's conduct the experiment; the business of saving souls is too important not to try it.) It is doomed because the reaction to the form is, for any Westerner, intimately tied to the reaction to the function. Generation Y can't be fooled; they know exactly what they are doing when they reject the stained glass and the wooden pews.
Jun '12
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
I don't know. They know what they think they are rejecting (i.e. what the media and Hollywood have told them). I think if they ever looked deeply, they would be astounded to find something virtually unheard of anymore, something real.
Nov '10
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
Can't we just level all the government buildings in DC and not rebuild them?
Jun '12
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
Architecture presents the cultural psyche as structured form. Imagining Greco-Roman civilizations without marble domes and arches is to re-imagine the souls of ancient artisans, a fruitless pursuit toward broadcasting modern arrogance, and nothing more. The same might be said of gothic forms: the languages spoken by Notre Dame and St. Paul's transcends modern deconstructionist conceits. If it does not, it is only because we have closed our eyes and covered our ears.
Mar '11
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
Has John O'Malley, the acolyte of the "Spirit of Vatican II," seen the light? He's contributed positively to a video advocating for traditional church architecture? I'm surprised, to say the least.
Jan '11
Re: Form Doesn't Follow Function
Form follows finance.