1901-1902 SULLIVAN
Louis Sullivan: A UNIVERSAL TRUTH
1901-1902 SULLIVAN (1) “... we are looking at a department store. No one can mistake it for a hotel, an office building, a railway station, or a bank – and yet it is not trigged out in the guise of a Roman temple. Its purpose is clearly set forth in its general aspect and the form follows the function in a simple, straightforward way. The structure is a logical, though somewhat bald, statement of its purpose, and an unmistakable though not wholly gratifying index of the business conducted within its walls.” (40, ch. XI. A Department Store)
1901-1902 SULLIVAN (2) "I like weeds: they have so much 'style' to them; and when I find them where they have grown free they seem most interesting and suggestive to me. (...) And then there are so many of them, and they differ so much in shape, color and arrangement; the form follows the function so beautifully ... ” (86, ch. XXV: A Letter [from the ‘student’]
1901-1902 SULLIVAN (3) “... I'm ... learning something every day. I can now tell the difference between a cow and a horse, between a pine-tree and an oak-tree. But when a farmer told me the other day that there were ten different kinds of oaks, four different kinds of pines, and thirty or forty different kinds of other trees hereabout, it gave me a shock, a shock of dread, least you might suddenly bob up and say that each one of these blooming trees has a function and the form of each follows that function with absolute fidelity, and you would expect me to observe them and give strict attention to the differences – when they all look alike to me now, and worse than that you would probably tell me there are here some three or four hundred different kinds of plants, several hundred kinds of insects, and dozens of kinds of birds, and that each has its complete correspondence of function and form, and, worse than all, you would tell me that the ability to note such correspondences constitute the ABC of architectural knowledge.” (88 ch. XXV: A Letter [from the 'student'])
1901-1902 SULLIVAN (4) “In view of what I have said concerning function and form, it must be fairly clear to you that the spirit of democracy is a function seeking expression in organized social form. I have stated also that every function is a subdivision or phase of that energy which we have called the Infinite Creative Spirit and which we may now call the Function of all functions. In just this sense the metaphysical basis of our philosophy is gradually establishing its definition, is elaborating its inner structure and outer form." (99; ch. XXX: Education)
1901-1902 SULLIVAN (5) “So remember, and bear ever in mind in your thinking and your doings, that FORM EVER FOLLOWS FUNCTION, that this is the law – a universal truth. That the main function, so far as you will be concerned, will focus in the specific needs of those who wish to build, and that such needs are quite apt to be emotional as well as what is so generally called practical. That your share will be to investigate and assimilate these needs with the utmost care, to find in the problem, which in the aggregate they form, a true solution, and then to express in truthful terms, in satisfying beautiful forms, a creative impulse which shall conserve and not suppress." (170; penultimate chapter LI. Optimism)
Sullivan, Louis H. Kindergarten Chats (revised 1918) and other writings (Ch. XI. A Department Store) New York: George Wittenborn, 1965.
COMMENTS TO 1901-1902 SULLIVAN (1-5)
c1: What became of the FFF-formula? The curious thing about Sullivan’s use of the formula FFF in Kindergarten Chats (according to the 1918 revision) is that it is strikingly downplayed. In chapters XII. and XIII. called “Function and Form (1)” and “Function and Form (2)” where it would be reasonable to expect this formula presented, discussed and defended, after Sullivan had elevated it to the highest principle of architectural design (see 1896 SULLIVAN (1)), the FFF-dictum is not mentioned at all. Only in the penultimate chapter of Kindergarten Chats – see quote (5) above – is the FFF-dictum presented as as “the law”, and “a universal truth”. The few other examples where FFF is explicitly referred to in these essays, seem to describe a particular case rather than a general law, as the use of definite articles before both ‘form’ and ‘function’ suggests; see 1901-1902 SULLIVAN (1-2), and (3) above.
c2: How can a form following function be described as ‘somewhat bald’? In only one of these FFF-related quotes (1), there is a reference to an artefact – a department store building – rather than to a natural object. But much to the reader’s chagrin, Sullivan, while describing its form as following the function suggests at the same time that this building is ‘somewhat bald’ and claims that it present ’an unmistakable though not wholly gratifying index of the business conducted within its walls.’ The reader must naturally ask how it is possible for Sullivan to claim that a form of an object follows function, and, at the same time, describe that form as somewhat bald and not wholly gratifying. Sullivan provides no clue. Shall we understand his censure so that the department store in question was not a true example of the FFF-principle , as true as in the case of weeds (quote 2) or blossoming trees (quote 3) ? Or was Sullivan perhaps suggesting that following that law does not of necessity guarantee a natural, fault-free, completely satisfactory architecture? Or was he perhaps suggesting that only he himself was really able to produce buildings where forms following functions would not result in somewhat bald buildings and where the structure would provide a wholly gratifying index of the business conducted within its walls? Sullivan claimed previously that if FFF becomes the respected law we would be on the high way to a natural and satisfactory architecture; he did not say that respecting that law would guarantee such architecture. Than no criterion was ever provided for what constitutes the artefact where form truly follows function, seems to have been a great advantage rather than a drawback of the functionalist design philosophy in its pre-victorious period. It seems that the real attraction of this philosophy was that, far from binding the designer and architect to a utilitarian philosophy of design, it provided him exactly the opposite: with the mental freedom of an autonomous artist. See also 1918 BRAGDON & c1.
c3: A quarry of synonymic formulations. Still, Kindergarten Chats and especially the chapters XII and XIII can be read as a quarry of comments on what Sullivan meant by the FFF-formula, as well as by the notion of function. Although Sullivan does not mention his formula in these two chapters at all, he uses a great number of terms which can be seen as synonyms for his notions of ‘form’ and ‘function’, as well as for the verb ‘follows’. His synonymous notions for FORM are: shape, outward expression, and design. For the verb ‘FOLLOWS’ Sullivan uses these synonyms: resembles, expresses, indicates, means, looks like, speaks for, stands for, makes us aware of, is the logical output of, and is the tangible evidence of. The notion of FUNCTION appears to be interchangeable with: purpose, reason, nature, essence,or inner purpose. This plethora of synonyms suggests that the three words making up the FFF-formula could be replaced with a combination of any three synonyms standing for those three main words. In this way we can obtain a great number of sentences which, I believe, have the same meaning as the FFF-formula itself, such as: shape speaks for purpose, or outward expression makes us aware of essence, or design is the tangible evidence of reason. This I take to suggest that there is no point in quarreling about the FFF-formula itself, and especially not about the word ‘follows’. What seems, however, to be the key word in the three word formula, is the notion of function – and its equivalent terms purpose, essence, reason and inner purpose. On the meanings of the notion of function, cf. Michl 1995.
c4: Designer as midwife. In the chapter L. “The Creative Impulse”, (which according to the editor represents an entirely new chapter, written in 1918) Sullivan expanded upon the following striking formulation from "The Tall Office Building..." (1896) where he wrote: "It is my belief that it is of the very essence of every problem that it contains and suggests its own solution. This I believe to be natural law. Let us examine, then, carefully the elements, let us search out this contained suggestion, this essence of the problem." (203). He returns to this thesis again in Kindergarten Chats at the end of ch. XLIX. “The Art of Expression” where he writes: "... inasmuch as you will have problems to meet and solve, let me give you this pointer: Every problem contains and suggests its own solution. Don't waste time looking anywhere else for it. In this mental attitude, in this mood of understanding, lies the technical beginning of the art of expression." (164, ch. XLIX. “The Art of Expression”) – Sullivan never explicitly articulated the implications of his design metaphysics (as it may be called; see 1843...GREENOUGH (5): c1; 1896 SULLIVAN: c7), or his slogan form follows function for the designer. These implications were strikingly formulated by the modernist US industrial designer Walter Dorwin Teague in 1940 (1949): in his view designer was bound to become a kind of midwife: “There is no longer any justification for looking beyond our horizons, or back into history, to discover a form for the thing we are making: we feel a compulsion to look within the thing itself for the form it should have, and we are the midwives of what we find there.” (Teague 1949:216) •
1916 REBORI
A. N. Rebori: WITH NO PROBLEMS ALIKE, NO TWO BUILDINGS ARE GIVEN THE SAME EXPRESSION
“That there is a formula to which Sullivan adheres in the development of his work is quite apparent; but of one thing we can rest assured, it is not one of duplication, for, with no problems alike, no two buildings are given the same expression. It is an architecture of pure intent, with form following function as its basic principle. To understand function requires an intimate knowledge of practical requirements; to express form demands artistic skill combined with an intimate knowledge of structural material. (437)
Rebori, A. N. “An Architecture of Democracy: Three Recent Examples from the Works of Lovis [sic] H. Sullivan.” The Architectural Record XXXIX (May, 1916): 437-65.
COMMENTS TO 1916 REBORI
c1: Rebori uses the notion of function in the Greenoughian, Sullivanian, and functionalist, sense: function is both a word for what an object does, and what what it is supposed to do. (On the functionalist notion of function as a amalgam of two different meanings, see Introduction, above part 4). Compare the matter-of-factly and much more precise and realistic use of the notion of function by human factor engineers of today: “Functional analysis refers to determining the specific functions and tasks that are to be performed by the user and product. Function in this context refers to several related units of work that have some common purpose. The individual units are usually referred to as tasks. Functional analysis should be performed jointly by design engineers and human factor specialists. (...) Assignment of most of functions and tasks to either the user or product, along with consideration of the methods and technological solutions for function implementation, should be deferred to the design phase.” (22-23) Cushman and Rosenberg 1991 •
1917 BRAGDON
Claude Bragdon: THE SPIRIT BUILT THE HOUSE
“It is necessary only to remember that the real point of cleavage between organic and arranged architecture is the one first dwelt upon. In order to determine to which hemisphere of expression a given building belongs, it is necessary only to apply the acid test of Mr. Sullivan’s formula and ask, ‘Does the form follow function, or is the function made subservient to form? Did the spirit build the house, or does the house confine the spirit?’ If the first, it is organic; if the second, it is arranged.” (362-63)
Bragdon, Claude. “The Language of Form.” In Roots of Contemporary American Architecture: A Series of Thirty-Seven Essays dating From the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present, ed. Lewis Mumford. 358-68. New York: Dover, 1972.
COMMENTS TO 1917 BRAGDON
c1: ‘Organic architecture’: question of principle or degree? Is the difference between the postulated ‘organic architecture’ and the ‘arranged architecture’ a question of principle or that of a degree? In case it is a matter of degree, it seems to be a legitimate and useful term for critical and polemical distinction. But Sullivan’s insistence on FFF as the law, as a universal truth, suggests that he referred to organic architecture (i.e. one where form was result of ‘function’) as an architecture in its very principle different from the previous one. Even in that case it is not clear though, whether one could legitimately speak about something like approximation to such organic architecture, and whether such approximation, although not a full-blown organic architecture, was more valuable that the arranged sorts of architecture. After all, even Plato himself was unwilling to see both carpenters and painters as equally removed from truth: he considered painters to be worse than carpenters because they imitated the carpenter’s imitations of Ideas. Bragdon, though, speaks of hemispheres of expression, suggesting that organic and arranged kind of architecture inhabit two different worlds, and are different from each other in principle rather than in degree.
c2: Popularizer of the FFF-formula? It may have been Bragdon who started the popularization of FFF-dictum. Bragdon, by the way, prepared later, in 1934, the book edition of Kindergarten Chats, based on Sullivan’s 1918- editing of the material (cf. Athey 1947, p. 251).
c3: FFF-formula as evaluation principle. 1938 BARNES & REINECKE in a incisive comment flatly reject the idea of using the FFF-formula for the evaluation of design. Admittedly, their rejection refers to the commercial nature of industrial design of which they are practitioners, while architecture is not typically a commercial object; still their argument is powerful and in my view has a principal bearing on the practice of architecture as well.
c4: De Zurko De Zurko 1957 comments on the notions of organic and arranged architecture in his first chapter. •
1918 BRAGDON
Claude Bragdon: FACE - NOT MASK
“Broadly speaking, there are not five orders of architecture – nor fifty – but only two: Arranged and Organic. These correspond to the two terms of that ‘inevitable duality’ which bisects life. Talent and genius, reason and intuition, bromide and sulphite [sic] and some of the names we know them by. –– Arranged architecture is reasoned and artificial; produced by talent, governed by taste. Organic architecture, on the other hand, is the product of some obscure inner necessity for self-expression which is subconscious. It is as though Nature herself, through some human organ of her activity, had addressed herself to the service of the sons and daughters of men. –– Arranged architecture in its finest manifestations is the product of a pride, a knowledge, a competence, a confidence staggering to behold. (...) For the subtlety of Nature’s geometry, and for her infinite variety and unexpectedness, Arranged architecture substitutes a Euclidean system of straight lines and (for the most part) circular curves, assembled and arranged according to a definite logic of its own. It is created but not creative; it is imagined but not imaginative. Organic architecture is both creative and imaginative. It is non-Euclidean in the sense that it is higher-dimensional – that is, it suggests extension in directions and into regions where the spirit finds itself at home, but of which the senses give no report to the brain. –– To make the whole thing clearer it may be said that Arranged and Organic architecture bear much the same relation to one another that a piano bears to a violin. A piano is an instrument that does not give forth discords if one follows the rules. A violin requires absolutely an ear – an inner rectitude. It has a way of betraying the man of talent and glorifying the genius, becoming one with his body and his soul. –– (...) ... there is one sure way by which each [order of architecture] may be recognized and known. If the function appears to have created the form and if everywhere the form follows the function, changing as that changes, the building is Organic; if on the contrary ‘the house confines the spirit,’ if the building presents not a face but however beautiful a mask, it is an example of Arranged architecture.” (51-55)
Bragdon, Claude. Architecture and Democracy. New York: Knopf, 1918.
COMMENTS TO 1918 BRAGDON
c1: The idea of self-expression and the FFF-formula. It sounds like a self-contradiction when Bragdon claims that organic architecture is a result of forms following functions, and at the same time argues that it is a product of an ”inner necessity for self-expression which is subconscious.” The FFF-dictum, it would appear, leaves no room for self-expression – meaning the designer’s self-expression – at all.This ‘self-expressive’ interpretation of organic architecture has possibly to do with Bragdon’s theosophist orientation (cf. Mumford 1972:368), though a very similar reference appears in Sullivan’s key article” Tall Office Building...” of 1896 where he writes in the concluding paragraph: “... each and every architect in the land might, under the benign influence of this law[i.e. the FFF-formula], express in the simplest, most modest, most natural way that which it is in him to say...”(see 1896 SULLIVAN (2). There seems to be little evidence to support Teague’s and Mumford’s suggestion that Bragdon somehow spoiled the Sullivanian heritage by his explicit embracement of theosophy (cf. Teague 1949: 275; Mumford 1972: 422). It seems, on the contrary, that both Sullivan and Bragdon agreed that ‘the inner necessity for self-expression’, when given free passage, somehow tapped the essence of ‘Nature’ (whatever that means) and brought the organic, function-generated form, forth. This nexus between self-expression and functionalism seems to be the link which explains why functionalism in no time turned into a formalist architecture: it happened probably because functionalism was a theory of artistic expression. This close connection between the idea of self-expression and that of functionalism suggests in addition that the differences (in the 1930s to 1960s) between defenders of functionalism and those of International Style were internal skirmishes within one ‘religion’, since both denominations had essentially artistic, formalist aims. (On the question of the two modernist doctrines, cf. Michl 1996; on the notion of function seen as a carte blanche and therefore an empty notion, cf. Michl 1995)
c2: Mask. ‘Mask’ and ‘masquerade’ were frequent expressions used by modernists it their critique of historicist and eclecticist architecture. The notion of mask and masquerade makes sense only as a pendant to the belief in what modernists called natural, authentic, truthful architecture, or whar Bragdon termed ‘organic’ architecture. •
1924 SULLIVAN
Louis Sullivan: ALL PRACTICAL DEMANDS OF UTILITY SHOULD BE PARAMOUNT
“Now Louis felt that he had arrived at a point where he had a foothold, where he could make a beginning in the open world. Having come into its responsibilities, he would face it boldly. He could now, undisturbed, start on the course of practical experimentation he long had in mind, which was to make an architecture that fitted its functions – a realistic architecture based on well defined utilitarian needs – that all practical demands of utility should be paramount as a basis of planning and design; that no architectural dictum, or tradition, or superstition, or habit, should stand in the way. He would brush them all aside, regardless of commentators. For his view, his conviction was this: That the architectural art to be of contemporary immediate value must be plastic; all senseless conventional rigidity must be taken out of it; it must intelligently serve – it must not suppress. In this wise the forms under his hand would grow naturally out of the needs and express them frankly, and freshly. This meant in his courageous mind that he would put to the test a formula he had evolved, through long contemplation of living things, namely that form follows function, which would mean, in practice, that architecture might again become a living art, if this formula were but adhered to.” (257-8)
Sullivan, Louis. The Autobiography of an Idea (1924). New York: Dover, 1956.
COMMENTS TO 1924 SULLIVAN
c1: The ‘misunderstandist’ school. Now in 1924, almost thirty years after he coined the FFF-formula, Sullivan explains its meaning in much more utilitarian terms than ever before. The probable reason for that may have been that he wanted it to profile himself as the theoretical precursor of the then contemporary functionalist trend in European architecture. All the same it is a fact that Sullivan’s argumentation in this ‘testament’ of his, is very utilitarian and need-based. This fact conflicts with claims of those commentators who claim that the utilitarian interpretation of the FFF-formula was based on misunderstanding its true meaning. Here such FFF-commentators will be referred to collectively as the ‘misunderstandist’ school; on the misunderstandists, see also 1935 MORRISON/(2)c1. (Cf. also Adams 1989; Friedlaender 1984; Heskett 1980; Huxtable 1984; Jordy 1972; Lampugnani 1980; Morrison 1971; Smith 1966; von Seidlein 1986; Weidenhoeft 1992). Our position on this question is this: since it can be documented that Sullivan himself came with different but always exceedingly vague suggestions about what this formula is to mean for the practicing architect and his day-to-day design process, it is presumptuous to describe the utilitarian understanding of it as a misunderstanding. Such statements obviously suggest not only that the ‘misunderstandist’ commentators know the true meaning of the formula. They seem to suggest, in addition, that the formula, in its not-misunderstood state, has been in fact practically feasible. Typically, however, the commentators fail to divulge this true meaning of the formula, as well as suggestions for practical use of the formula; if they do attempt, the meaning tends to be usually vague, hardly adding to the practical value of the formula (see 1935 MORRISON; 1960 BUSH-BROWN; 1964 MUMFORD; 1966 SMITH; 1972 JORDY; 1980 HESKETT; 1980 LAMPUGNANI; 1982 CAPLAN; 1983 von SEIDLEIN; 1984 FRIEDLAENDER; 1984 HUXTABLE; 1989 ADAMS; 1992 WEIDENHOEFT). –– We would not deny on the other hand that there can be a real misunderstanding of the formula, as in the case of taking it as a technological/historical explanation explanation (e.g. 1993 LAMBERT & C1), or in the case of distinguishing between vulgar and non-vulgar kind of functionalist theory; see 1896 ADLER: c2.
c2: Theory-denial. Again, as in “The High Office Building Artistically Considered” also here Sullivan underlines what was to become the most striking feature of the modernist philosophy of design: the denial that modernism was driven by a theory, a program, that is, by something preconceived, premeditated. Sullivan in the above quotation that “all practical demands of utility should be paramount as a basis of planning and design; that no architectural dictum ... should stand in the way.” The probable reason why Sullivan did not see his FFF-formula as an architectural dictum in its own right, i.e. as a program, or a theory, was that he took the formula to be a natural law – i.e. a fact, and consequently a matter of moral choice between truth and falsehood. The American ‘philosophical speculator’ (as he calls himself) George Soros elucidated this phenomenon in his analysis of what he called ‘dogmatic thinking’, a historical category which he sees as a way of escaping the uncertainties produced by the ‘critical thinking’ of the open society. He argues that the dogmatic thinking attempts to win back certainties of the traditional thinking typical for traditional societies with no or little change. There the distinction between thought and reality, characteristic for the critical thinking is not developed. The problem of such escapes is however, that the changelessness which was a fact in traditional societies, is postulated here - is a program, and as such result of a choice. The dogmatic mode of thinking is therefore bound to practice what we call here a ‘theory-denial’: as Soros says, “in the dogmatic thinking it is out of question to admit that it puts forward a postulate, because to do so would undermine the unproblematic authority which it aims at.” (Cf. Soros 1991: 242; cf. also Becker 1963.)
c3: Biological – or metaphysical principle? Sullivan claimed in the text above that he developed the FFF-formula “through a long contemplation of living things”. This led some writes to suggest that the formula is a summary of a principle derived from biology (cf. Honzik...1963 (?); 1954 NEUTRA; 1985 BAYLEY; 1993 PALLASMAA). This, however, does not square with Sullivan’s own earlier statements. In “The Tall Office Building...” (see 1896 SULLIVAN) he claimed explicitly that FFF was “the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic...”, and he listed there among examples of the forms ever following functions also a winding stream, drifting clouds and granite rocks. In Kindergarten Chats he included other non-biological entities such as wave and rain among illustrations of his idea, synonymous to his FFF-formula, that “a thing looks like what it is, and, vice versa, it is what it looks like”: “form, wave, looks like function, wave; the form, cloud, speaks to us of the function, cloud; the form, rain, indicates the function, rain”. All this suggests that the FFF-formula should rather be seen as a summary of a cosmic (theological or metaphysical) principle rather than a biological one: Sullivan’s idea that form follows function was apparently meant to suggest
[that forms in Nature somehow follow fiats of a Superior Intelligence, or]that these forms were material ‘correspondents’ to spiritual realities. This was in fact claimed by Sullivan in fairly explicit terms: in one of many exalted passages in his Kindergarten Chats (ch. XII : 44), he writes about the “world of the silent, immeasurable, creative spirit, of whose infinite function all these things are but the varied manifestations in form ... a universe wherein all is function, all is form: a frightful phantasm, driving the mind to despair, or, as we will, a glorious revelation of that power which holds us in an invisible, a benign, a relentless – a wondrous hand”; and in the same chapter (45) he claimed that, “[forms] stand for relationships between the immaterial and the material ... between the Infinite Spirit and the finite mind.” It seems, in other words, that ‘function’ in the sentence FFF had apparently less to do with ‘utilitarian functioning’ and more with alleged metaphysical purposes of things. Forms of streams, waves, rain, clouds and rocks, just as forms of eagles, horses or rose-bushes, in Sullivan’s view followed the Purposes of a Superior Intelligence. That explained why they allegedly looked like what they were, and were what they looked like (see also 1966 NORBERG-SCHULZ: c1). And since most of then contemporary buildings in Sullivan’s view failed to look like what they purportedly were, and looked instead like what they were not, it was imperative that also architects should follow the suit by making the law, form follows function, into their own. (Where architects acquired the striking power to disobey the natural law, or, to put it differently, why the Superior Intelligence behind the natural law failed to make architects follow its commands, Sullivan does not discuss, though he does suggest that such unnatural behavior was due to faulty architectural education. Soros in the book quoted above in c2, points out on p. 244 the vicissitudes of the dogmatic thinking: “It seems that the mind is an instrumeant able to solve any contradictio produced by itself, by generating new contadictions somewhere else.” (“Zda se, ze mysl je nastroj schopny vyresit kazdy rozpor, ktery sama produkuje, vytvorenim novych rozporu nekde jinde.” ) [?-trans.!]c5: The philosophy underlying the functionalist doctrine can be seen as a case of what Abrams 1971: 68 called 'Natural Supernaturalism', describing it as “the general tendency ... in diverse degrees and ways, to naturalize the supernatural and to humanize the divine.” •
1925 KIMBALL
Fiske Kimball: [FFF-FORMULA NOT COMMENTED]
Kimball, F. “Louis Sullivan – An Old Master.” Architectural Record 57 (April, 1925): 289-304.
COMMENTS TO 1925 KIMBALL
c1: Kimball does not refer to, mention or comment the FFF-formula, but he quotes at great length (two out of eight fully printed pages) the theoretical parts from Sullivan’s article “ The Tall Office Building...” which include all three FFF-passages. The article is interesting also because Kimball, as early as 1925, uses the words “functionalism”, “functionalist”, “modernist”, and “‘modernism’” (the last one in quotation-marks): “...the skyscraper, the last stronghold of functionalism...” (303); “In their narrow search for truth to nature, for expression of use and structure, too many of the impressionists and functionalists lost all form.”(304); “A new continent, a new society, a new community, was needed for the realization of modernist ideas.” (297); “...consistent ‘modernists’ like Sullivan...”. It is not quite clear what exactly he means by the words ‘functionalism’ and ‘functionalist’,but it is obvious that he refers to a theoretical position rather than style. Kimball speaks also of “functional mode of design which [Sullivan] championed...” giving both Albert Kahn and Frank Lloyd Wright as representatives of the mode. (No word in the above quotations is underlined in the original.) Here we would probably use the adjective ‘functionalist’ instead; see 1934 GROPIUS: c3 . •
1925 TEIGE
Karel Teige: [IN SEARCH OF A HANDY FORMULA (I)]
"The field has been dominated by civil engineers. Being without bias, not bound by petite aesthetic formulas, they approached their very concrete tasks with mathematic logic. Viaducts (such as the exemplary Pont Garabit by Eiffel), locomotives, cars, ships, airplanes; all the works of engineers have forms determined by function, given by calculation; they generate a new, not an apriori, aesthetic of the building art." (106)
Teige, Karel. “Moderni francouzska architektura I.” Stavba 3 (1924-1925): 103-107.
COMMENTS TO 1925 TEIGE
c1: Engineers and forms. ...... •
1928 MOHOLY-NAGY
László Moholy-Nagy: [IN SEARCH OF A HANDY FORMULA (II)]
“In all fields of creation, workers are striving today to find purely functional solutions of a technical-biological kind: that is, to build up each piece of work solely from the elements which are required for its function.” (61)
Moholy-Nagy. 1928. The New Vision: From Materials to Architecture.
Quoted after Susanne K. Langer, Feeling and Form, 1953, p. 93, n. 6.
COMMENTS TO 1928 MOHOLY-NAGY
c1: As far as I could find out, the FFF-formula itself – in contrast to the design doctrine of which it is a summary – was not known at the Bauhaus. When the elegant, brief and compact FFF-formula became known in Europe, it soon replaced the earlier and always somewhat clumsy attempts to define the essence of the functionalist design doctrine. Then, instead of using a long string of words explaining that the point of the modernist effort was “to build up each piece of work solely from the elements which are required for its function” one could say that the gist of the modernist principle was the dictum form follows function. (There was, incidentally, only one formulation of the modernist design principle which could compete with the elegance of Sullivan’s formula: the Russian artist Vladimir Tatlin’s slogan from the early 1920s: “Neither the new, nor the old, but the necessary”; cf. Andel 1990). •
1929 HITCHCOCK
Henry-Russell Hitchcock: SULLIVAN’S ‘IDEA’
“In the Wainwright Building in St. Louis, built in 1890, the year before Root's death, Sullivan attempted definitely in his exterior design to establish a formula. Despite his introduction of intermediate vertical piers of equal weight between his supporting piers, Sullivan pronounced here what has since been considered as the norm of logical treatment for tall buildings of steel construction. Anxious as he was to express his 'Idea' that form follows function it must to-day appear that in the Tacoma Building had already been provided a far more satisfactory solution of the problem. (...) In the latter part of his life, Sullivan devoted much time to the vain task of proselyting for his theory of form following function and of free ornament." (112-113)
Hitchcock, Henry-Russell. Modern Architecture: Romanticism and Reintegration (1929). New York: Da Capo Press, 1993.
COMMENT TO 1929 HITCHCOCK
c1: Hitchcock’s reference to the FFF-formula is the earliest reference to this formula known to me by a person not belonging to the Sullivan circle, and by a historian of architecture, albeit an apologetic one (for the notion of ‘apologetic historian’, see 1952 CONDIT: c1). In view of Hitchcock’s familiarity with the formula it is surprising not to find any mention of it in the later key modernist text published in 1932 by Hitchcock and Johnson in connection with the MoMA exhibition of the architecture of ‘International Style’ (cf. Hitchcock and Johnson 1932) where functionalism was discussed – and rejected – as an allegedly utilitarian creed. What was the reason for not mentioning the FFF-formula in that 1932 text as a gist of the functionalist creed? Was it simply because the authors who wrote mainly about European architecture, was aware that the formula was not yet known in Europe in the twenties and early thirties? Did they feel that formula was a purely US phenomenon, barely well-enough known in the States themselves, to be used as an illustrative summary of the European creed they were rejecting? Or was it perhaps because neither Hitchcock nor Johnson had much sympathy for Louis Sullivan: cf. Johnson 1956 for an early, long. and explicitly critical view of Sullivan as both architect and theorist of architecture.
c2: For further comment on the Wainwright building as an embodiment of the FFF-formula, see 1961 SCULLY. •