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.