Does architecture insert itself into culture or is culture inserted to architecture?

             In “Preexisting conditions and issues of contemporary building practice” Ernesto Rogers thoroughly explains his “new program for architecture” from a rationalist perspective. Rogers is advocating that designers, “…insert the needs of life into culture and conversely, to insert culture into everyday life: this is the task of the architect…” (Rogers) I found this particular relationship between life, culture, and architecture to be interesting. I began to question what element in this complex relationship is applying the most force upon the others? Before any connection can be made we must first look back to the creator of the form, the architect.

An architect designs a form based on their own perception of what culture is asking for.  Rogers states in his essay, “Forms must convincingly document the subtlest ethical claims of collective and individual man, continuing the ancient discourse.” (Rogers) Representing the collective and the individual creates a problem for the architect. Culture cannot be defined by a single idea because it is composed from very different parts. Within any culture there are many subcultures: from politicians to anarchist, religious to atheist.  So the question becomes not whether architecture or culture is imposing on each other but how to impose them in a “convincing” form.

            According to Rogers the solution to the design problem is to look at every question in a different context, “One who today confronts a creative problem must insert his own thought into objective reality, which each time presents itself in terms of its own interpretation…” Architects should design according to the context of the project. This context is what makes a building specific and natural to its environment. Rogers believes that context can be found in the history of a place, “…the events of the past find their reason in the coherent consistency of the original acts that have determined them… the present is, in its turn, an original creation. That which, however, disintegrates history unifies it in a sense of continuity whereby the past is projected into present occurrences and the latter are joined together in finding their roots in anterior facts.” When architecture is rooted in context it is culture.

Ernesto Nathan Rogers, "Preexisting Conditions and Issues of contemporary Building Practice,"from Architecture Culture       1943-1968: A Documentary Anthology, edited by Joan Ockman (New York: Columbia Books of Architecture/Rizzoli,     1993) 200-204.

What comes first: Form or Function?

The process an architect takes to achieve a form or design spaces in architecture will define their style of architecture. The whole stylistic nature of architecture comes from the architect’s particular method of creating. What and architect values most will always take precedence when deciding on a final form for a building.

In the early 19^th century the technology of constructing skyscrapers was advancing and becoming more popular. In his article “The Tall office Building Artistically Considered,” Louis Sullivan talks about the idea of form fallowing function. He states in the article:

“It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,

Of all things physical and metaphysical,

Of all things human and all things super-human,

Of all true manifestations of the head,

Of the heart, of the soul,

That the life is recognizable in its expression,

That form ever follows function. This is the law. “ (Sullivan)

The idea that form follows function conveys that the architectural shape of a building should be directly related to the program or purpose of the building. The skyscrapers in Chicago designed by Sullivan were an excellent example of his motto “form fallows function,” because they were mostly void of any ornamentation. The buildings Sullivan designed were very direct about there purpose.

            New ideas about the roll of form and function began to arise from the modernist movement, that began to question Sullivan’s method of designing buildings.  Louis Kahn in particular had a very different idea about where form is derived from. According to Kahn “what a thing wants to be” creates form apposed to the function of the thing creating the form. Design is “how” the form is achieved. Kahn believed that “A space in architecture shows how it is made.” (Kahn) He often achieved this idea by allowing the structure of a building to show through. To khan steel and concrete were more than just necessary structurally but aesthetically as well.

Louis I. Kahn, "Architecture is the Thoughtful Making of Spaces," from Architecture Culture 1943-1968: A Documentary Anthology, edited by Joan Ockman (New York: Columbia Books of Architecture/Rizzoli, 1993) 270-272.[textbook]

Sullivan, Louis H. The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered. Lippincott's Magazine, 1896. Print.