Against form follows function An Essay by Andrea Resmini andrearesmini.com I cannot get past the fact that any *designer* who throws that phrase around matter-of-factly, as in “of course form follows function”, comes out as a complete ignoramus. An ignoramus who's not just repeating an 1896 “law” without any clues as to what it means but who also, most poignantly, demonstrates to possess no knowledge of what has happened in design and architecture since Sullivan and Adler contributed to inventing the high rise building and, by extension, much of the world we live in. Useless work on useful thingsForm follows functionForm follows failure formfunctionarchitecture
What can be put into words It is not evident, though many people, from the early Greeks on, implicitly act as if it were true, that all things, whatsoever they may be, can be put into words—you could talk about anything: the gods, truth, beauty, and justice. But if you consider what happens in a music concert, then it is obvious that what is transmitted to the audience cannot be put into words—if it could, then the composer and musicians would probably have used words. All the music critics to the contrary, what music communicates cannot (apparently) be put into words. Similarly, but to a lesser extent, for painting. Poetry is a curious field where words are used but the true content of the poem is not in the words! Richard Hamming, The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn Everything that can be saidWhereof one cannot speak