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Functionalism (architecture)
Encyclopedia
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
, is the principle that architects should design a building based on the purpose of that building. This statement is less self-evident than it first appears, and is a matter of confusion and controversy within the profession, particularly in regard to modern architecture
Modern architecture
Modern architecture is generally characterized by simplification of form and creation of ornament from the structure and theme of the building. It is a term applied to an overarching movement, with its exact definition and scope varying widely...
.
The place of functionalism in building can be traced back to the Vitruvian
Vitruvius
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman writer, architect and engineer, active in the 1st century BC. He is best known as the author of the multi-volume work De Architectura ....
triad, where 'utilitas' (variously translated as 'commodity', 'convenience', or 'utility') stands alongside 'venustas' (beauty) and 'firmitas' (firmness) as one of three classic goals of architecture. Functionalist views were typical of some gothic revival architects, in particular Augustus Welby Pugin wrote that "there should be no features about a building which are not necessary for convenience, construction, or propriety" and "all ornament should consist of enrichment of the essential construction of the building".
The debate about functionalism and aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
is often framed as a mutually exclusive choice, when in fact there are architects, like Will Bruder
Will Bruder
Will Bruder is an American architect.Bruder studied art and engineering, but had no formal university training in architecture. After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 1968, he worked and studied under Paolo Soleri, where he acquired...
, James Polshek
James Polshek
James Stewart Polshek is an American architect based in New York City. He is the founder of Polshek Partnership, the firm at which he was Principal Design Partner for more than four decades...
and Ken Yeang
Ken Yeang
Dr. Ken Yeang [Chinese]: 杨经文/楊經文; [pinyin]: Yáng Jīngwén; born 1948) is a prolific Malaysian architect and writer best known for advancing green design and planning, differentiated from other green architects by his comprehensive ecological approach....
, who attempt to satisfy all three Vitruvian goals.
History of functionalism
In the early years of the 20th century, Chicago architect Louis SullivanLouis Sullivan
Louis Henri Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism" He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an...
popularized the phrase 'form ever follows function
Form follows function
Form follows function is a principle associated with modern architecture and industrial design in the 20th century. The principle is that the shape of a building or object should be primarily based upon its intended function or purpose....
' to capture his belief that a building's size, massing, spatial grammar and other characteristics should be driven solely by the function of the building. The implication is that if the functional aspects are satisfied, architectural beauty would naturally and necessarily follow.
Sullivan's credo is often viewed as being ironic in light of his extensive use of intricate ornament
Ornament (architecture)
In architecture and decorative art, ornament is a decoration used to embellish parts of a building or object. Large figurative elements such as monumental sculpture and their equivalents in decorative art are excluded from the term; most ornament does not include human figures, and if present they...
, since a common belief among functionalist architects is that ornament serves no function. The credo also does not address whose function he means. The architect of an apartment building, for instance, can easily be at cross-purposes with the owners of the building regarding how the building should look and feel, and they could both be at cross-purposes with the future tenants. Nevertheless 'form follows function' expresses a significant and enduring idea. Sullivan's protege Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
is also cited as an exemplar of functional design.
In the mid-1930s, functionalism began to be discussed as an aesthetic approach rather than a matter of design integrity. The idea of functionalism was conflated with lack of ornamentation, which is a different matter. It became a pejorative term associated with the most bald and brutal ways to cover space, like cheap commercial buildings and sheds, then finally used, for example in academic criticism of Buckminster Fuller
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
's geodesic dome
Geodesic dome
A geodesic dome is a spherical or partial-spherical shell structure or lattice shell based on a network of great circles on the surface of a sphere. The geodesics intersect to form triangular elements that have local triangular rigidity and also distribute the stress across the structure. When...
s, simply as a synonym for 'gauche'.
For 70 years the preeminent and influential American architect Philip Johnson
Philip Johnson
Philip Cortelyou Johnson was an influential American architect.In 1930, he founded the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and later , as a trustee, he was awarded an American Institute of Architects Gold Medal and the first Pritzker Architecture...
held that the profession has no functional responsibility whatsoever, and this is one of the many views today.
Johnson said, "Where form comes from I don’t know, but it has nothing at all to do with the functional or sociological aspects of our architecture". The position of postmodern
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
architect Peter Eisenman
Peter Eisenman
Peter Eisenman is an American architect. Eisenman's professional work is often referred to as formalist, deconstructive, late avant-garde, late or high modernist, etc...
is based on a user-hostile theoretical basis and even more extreme: "I don't do function." The best-known architects in the west, like Frank Gehry
Frank Gehry
Frank Owen Gehry, is a Canadian American Pritzker Prize-winning architect based in Los Angeles, California.His buildings, including his private residence, have become tourist attractions...
, Steven Holl
Steven Holl
Steven Holl is an American architect and watercolorist, perhaps best known for the 1998 Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum in Helsinki, Finland, the 2003 Simmons Hall at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the celebrated 2007 Bloch Building addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City,...
, Richard Meier
Richard Meier
Richard Meier is an American architect, whose rationalist buildings make prominent use of the color white.- Biography :Meier is Jewish and was born in Newark, New Jersey...
and I.M. Pei, see themselves primarily as artists, with some secondary responsibility to make their buildings functional for clients and/or users. .
Modernism
The roots of modern architectureModern architecture
Modern architecture is generally characterized by simplification of form and creation of ornament from the structure and theme of the building. It is a term applied to an overarching movement, with its exact definition and scope varying widely...
lie in the work of the Franco-Swiss architect Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
and the German architect Mies van der Rohe. Both were functionalists at least to the extent that their buildings were radical simplifications of previous styles. In 1923 Mies van der Rohe was working in Weimar
Weimar culture
Weimar culture was a flourishing of the arts and sciences that happened during the Weimar Republic...
Germany, and had begun his career of producing radically simplified, lovingly detailed structures that achieved Sullivan's goal of inherent architectural beauty. Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
famously said "a house is a machine for living in"; his 1923 book Vers une architecture was, and still is, very influential, and his early built work such as the Villa Savoye
Villa Savoye
Villa Savoye is a modernist villa in Poissy, in the outskirts of Paris, France. It was designed by Swiss architects Le Corbusier and his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, and built between 1928 and 1931....
in Poissy
Poissy
Poissy is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris from the center.In 1561 it was the site of a fruitless Catholic-Huguenot conference, the Colloquy at Poissy...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, is thought of as prototypically functional.
Danish Functionalism
Danish Functionalists focused primarily on functionality at the expense of aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
and produced a number of buildings that are characterized by straight angles, flat roofs, and a kind of roughness provided by the minimally decorated concrete
Concrete
Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...
slabs that the buildings themselves are made of. A fine example of the Danish Functionalist style is Aarhus University designed by the architect C.F. Møller
C.F. Møller
Christian Frederik Møller , generally referred to as C. F. Møller, was a Danish architect, professor and, from 1965 to 1969, the first rector of the Aarhus School of Architecture. His former practice, Arkitektfirmaet C. F. Møller, which he founded in 1924, still exists and bears his name...
. Danish architects such as Kaare Klint and Arne Jacobsen
Arne Jacobsen
Arne Emil Jacobsen, usually known as Arne Jacobsen, was a Danish architect and designer. He is remembered for contributing so much to architectural Functionalism as well as for the worldwide success he enjoyed with simple but effective chair designs.-Early life and education:Arne Jacobsen was born...
extended their approach to the furniture now known as Danish modern
Danish modern
Danish modern, frequently capitalized as Danish Modern, is a vintage style of minimalist wood furniture from Denmark associated with the Danish design movement...
.
Examples
Examples of functionalist architecture:- Södra ÄngbySödra ÄngbySödra Ängby is a residential area blending functionalism with garden city ideals, located in western Stockholm, Sweden, forming part of the Bromma borough....
, StockholmStockholmStockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, SwedenSwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund.... - Aarhus University, DenmarkDenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
- Villa SavoyeVilla SavoyeVilla Savoye is a modernist villa in Poissy, in the outskirts of Paris, France. It was designed by Swiss architects Le Corbusier and his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, and built between 1928 and 1931....
, PoissyPoissyPoissy is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris from the center.In 1561 it was the site of a fruitless Catholic-Huguenot conference, the Colloquy at Poissy...
, FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
Södra Ängby
The residential areaResidential area
A residential area is a land use in which housing predominates, as opposed to industrial and commercial areas.Housing may vary significantly between, and through, residential areas. These include single family housing, multi-family residential, or mobile homes. Zoning for residential use may permit...
of Södra Ängby
Södra Ängby
Södra Ängby is a residential area blending functionalism with garden city ideals, located in western Stockholm, Sweden, forming part of the Bromma borough....
in western Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, blended a functionalist or international
International style (architecture)
The International style is a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modern architecture. The term originated from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style...
style with garden city
Garden city movement
The garden city movement is a method of urban planning that was initiated in 1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom. Garden cities were intended to be planned, self-contained communities surrounded by "greenbelts" , containing proportionate areas of residences, industry and...
ideals. Encompassing more than 500 buildings, it remains the largest coherent functionalistic villa
Villa
A villa was originally an ancient Roman upper-class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became small farming compounds, which were increasingly fortified in Late Antiquity,...
area in Sweden and possibly the world, still well-preserved more than a half-century after its construction 1933–40 and protected as a national cultural heritage.
Functionalism in landscape architecture
The development of functionalism in landscape architectureLandscape architecture
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor and public spaces to achieve environmental, socio-behavioral, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic investigation of existing social, ecological, and geological conditions and processes in the landscape, and the design of interventions...
paralleled its development in building architecture. At the residential scale, designers like Christopher Tunnard
Christopher Tunnard
Christopher Tunnard was an Canadian-born landscape architect, garden designer, city-planner, and author of Gardens in the Modern Landscape...
, James Rose, and Garrett Eckbo
Garrett Eckbo
Garrett Eckbo was an American landscape architect notable for his seminal 1950 book Landscape for Living.-Youth:...
advocated a design philosophy based on the creation of spaces for outdoor living and the integration of house and garden. At a larger scale, the German landscape architect and planner Leberecht Migge
Leberecht Migge
Leberecht Migge was a German landscape architect, regional planner and polemical writer, best known for the incorporation of social gardening principles in the Siedlungswesen movement during the Weimar Republic...
advocated the use of edible gardens in social housing projects as a way to counteract hunger and increase self-sufficiency of families.
At a larger scale, the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne
Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne
The Congrès internationaux d'architecture moderne – CIAM was an organization founded in 1928 and disbanded in 1959, responsible for a series of events and congresses arranged around the world by the most prominent architects of the time, with the objective of spreading the principles of the Modern...
advocated for urban design strategies based on human proportions and in support of four functions of human settlement: housing, work, play, and transport.
Literature
- Vers une Architecture and Villa Savoye: A Comparison of Treatise and Building - A multipart essay explaining the basics of Le Corbusier's theory and contrasting them with his built work.
- Behne, Adolf (1923). The Modern Functional Building. Michael Robinson, trans. Santa Monica: Getty Research Institute, 1996.
- Forty, Adrian (2000). "Function". Words and Buildings, A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture. Thames & Hudson, p. 174-195.
- Michl, Jan (1995). Form follows WHAT? The modernist notion of function as a carte blanche 1995