#1 July 20th, 2016 08:27 AM

trevor
Member

Form follows function --- for Angelina_d

Angelina, commenting on your beatiful folio of 19 July, I voiced the opinion that you were an exquisite example of form following function.  I also said that I would here copy the quote where the maxim, "form follows function", originated --- coined by the great American architect, Louis Sullivan in 1896.  I think it a beautiful idea, beautifully stated.  It also had a profound influence on architecture in the late 19th century into the 20th century, not just in architecture but in industrial design.

"Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, or the open apple-blossom, the toiling work-horse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law. Where function does not change, form does not change. The granite rocks, the ever-brooding hills, remain for ages; the lightning lives, comes into shape, and dies, in a twinkling.
It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, 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, Louis H. (1896). "The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered". Lippincott's Magazine (March 1896): 403–409.

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