This is where the lie began. The lie that architects have used to defend their designs in the modern age. The lie is, “Form follows function”— Louis Sullivan’s 19th century prophecy of 20th century modernist architecture. The actual quote is “Form ever follows function,” and Sullivan wrote the phrase five years prior to Kindergarten Chats; however, it is in his “Chats” that Sullivan fleshes out what he means by the phrase. As I understand it, Sullivan is arguing for clarity and truth in a form’s meaning. Not simply that the function oak tree, cloud, and rose result in the form oak tree, cloud, and rose, but that truth in form is better able to communicate truth in meaning.
In our modern age the phrase has been used to defend architectural form. The form is a direct result of the function — it is what it is and can be no other way. Architects have defended their designs on this foundation that appears to be an objective truth—form is a direct result of its function. However, those of us in the architecture business know the truth. Our architectural form making has little to do with actual empirical data. Except in the case of concert halls for orchestras and operas, most architectural form is created from simplistic rules of thumb, precedent spaces, and a hunch that the realized space will have the right spacial feeling when erected.
So why the lie?
Confident architects have been able to defend their designs on the basis of sheer delight. I recall Louis Kahn’s quote regarding the porches at the Kimbell Museum. He loved them because they were so unnecessary. For less confident architects it’s hard to look a client in the eye and say this $700,000 porch is unnecessary but it looks cool and I believe we should have it in the Contract Documents. We seem to need something objective, something rational to hang our design decisions on….and so we lie. We convince our clients (and ourselves) that although the form is visually and spacially stimulating it is the way it is because the function dictates that. Perhaps a little finesse is allowable, but the gargantuan doodad that brings such visual pleasure is really there for shade, for clarity of entry, for heat stratification, for rain screen requirements. It’s not just aesthetic. It’s functional. It’s practical.
Sullivan’s understanding wasn’t so limited. It seems he was looking for truth in form founded on function but not boxed in by it. He was from a previous generation that did not see the split between the physical and the metaphysical, the material and the spiritual. However, those of us in this modern age struggle with the stratification between analytical and continental philosophy and we find ourselves justifying our designs with the practical. Until our society and clients are willing to financially put Delight on equal footing with Firmness and Commodity, lesser architects will continue use this lie as a crutch.