THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE DESIGN
The two things that every architect will look into before designing a building, the form and function. Form and function come hand in hand, they are like one, it will not survive without just one half of them. The only differences between this two is form holds aesthetics and function holds a imaginary space.
F O R M A N D F U N C T I O N
PROLOGUE
FORM AND FUNCTION’S RELATIONSHIP
Relationship between form and function is like human body without an attitude, a human that likes sports forms a muscular body, meanwhile a human that loves gaming forms a lanky body. Form could not exist without function while function could not exist without form. Some architects today neglect the function and just go with form, it’s impossible to think of a form without a function, for example, a entrance’s form should be something welcoming and big in typical, but without all these function the form won’t exist. It is like what Louis Sullivan said “form follows function”.
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The architect I want to talk about is the master of deconstructivism, Frank Gehry. It is absurd how his building look but the form follows its buildings function. Frank Gehry said that he is always trying to express movement that explains a part of how his form comes.
Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao was one of Frank Gehry famous building. In my opinion, I think that Frank Gehry is trying to express that movement to a museum should be very exciting and thrill, not like the typical museum that does not express anything. From the picture above, you could see all the curves are centralize to a point that it is inviting human to walk in, this is where form and function are on point.
The bridge to the museum is dominantly design to let human flow into his building, with that curve, flow and that ascending narrow space bring human to the building naturally. The bridge function meets the requirement of the form as well.
How would a normal lift look like to you, a simple and moving upwards container, but Frank Gehry express the movement of the moving upwards so he could design the lift in sense that the form serves a purposes and not by random design.
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Looking back to Louis Sullivan famous Wainwright Building, he always emphasize on form follows function. The Wainwright building is a good example of form follows function, everything design is for a purpose.
From these two architects, from past to present, but the rule follows, form follows function. How did everything changes but the rule stays? I would say that relationship of form and function did not change through all these years, but the uses, materials and technologies changed. Technologies now help architect to find new materials that are able to express what they want convey to the user, for example, Frank Gehry found the new material that is able to be bend to a shape that he want to express those movements. It is important that every architect know form follows function so that they could design something systematically.