Alden B. Dow's home and studio in Midland, Michigan. Begun in 1939, and like all good organic architecture, a building that was designed to integrate architecture and site.
G-Man, thinking something and there being something about which you're thinking are not necessarily the same thing.
"It looks great now, but what happens when it rains and the water levels rise? "
It's been raining since 1939, and no problems have been reported.
So much for that 'problem.'
"It's like that waterfall house, it's practically unliveable and requires constant maintenance. "
In fact the "waterfall house" was superbly liveable, as the Kaufmann family whose house it was reported all too frequently. Read Edgar Kaufmann Jr's book of the house if you want confirmation.
Maintenance? Every house needs maintenance. However, maintenance hadn't been done for years by the government department that now owns the house -- and for which they receive several hundred thousand dollars a year in visitors' contributions -- and this was one of the chief reasons the house recently needed repairs. This by the way was a full seventy years after it was built. What finally brought it low was not the storms, floods and violent forces of nature that it rode out of for most of those eventy years, but twenty or so years of being looked after by bureaucrats.
Which brings up the point: should form follow function or the other way around?
I know this is a terrible analogy, but the other day I was making the case that Anton Oliver's days should be very numbered--he can't throw a ball straight to save himself, my friend said that he was just so good looking in loose play.
So F----king what? his prime role is to throw the ball in, that is a prerequisite, it wouldn't matter if he could prove a mathematical theory or negoiate a peace treaty between scrums: if he can't throw the ball in straight then he's gone.
There are a lot of buildings in wellington, in whcich I think they have not met the function before going for form.
I am NOT trying to sound like Ellsworth Toohey here.
I rejoice in aesthetics and creation, but if they can't throw the bloody ball in straight....
"...should form follow function or the other way around?"
Good question. Answering it could be a good post, considering that asking and answering it has occupied architects for well over a century.
The dictum, that form follows function, was first formulated by Frank Lloyd Wright's mentor, Louis Sullivan, in opposing the form-free stylists who applied candy floss and copied styles to new buildings with modern functions.
But it wasn't just a 'razor' to cut off the excrescences of fashion.
To Sullivan, the dictum meant rather more than the simple mechanistic approach to form adopted by the ‘glass-box boys’ who followed him – his was a much richer, much more organic conception:
"And amid the immense number and variety of living forms, I noted that invariably the form expressed the function, as, for instance, the oak tree expressed the function oak, the pine tree expressed the function pine, and so on through the amazing series. And, inquiring more deeply, I discovered that in truth it was not simply a matter of form expressing function, but the vital idea was this: That the function created or organised its form… "
So form follows function -- or rather: the function creates or organises its own form.
But this dictum quickly became a password for sterility when the 'glass-box boys' got hold of it -- or as you say of the mediocrities around Wellington, when they've ignored it altogether.
As to whether function or form comes first, Frank Lloyd Wright reckoned he'd hit upon "a higher truth," that FORM AND FUNCTION ARE ONE. In other words, form both follows function, and affects it, a truth lost on both the Frank Gehry school of post-modern masturbation and on the 'glass box boys' around the world.
Winston Churchill would have agreed: writing on Churchill in 'Recombinant Architecture - Façade/Interface' the authors commented: "There [is] a complementarity of life and bricks and mortar, like that of snail and shell. If there was a mismatch, then the building had to be modified or the institution was forced to adapt. ... remarking on the British Houses of Parliament, Winston Churchill cast this point into a much-quoted aphorism: "We make our buildings and our buildings make us"."
"I am NOT trying to sound like Ellsworth Toohey here."
And thank goodness for that. The only function Ellsworth appreciated was the means of getting one neck in one noose by means of promoting mediocrity. ;^)
And how about Anton Oliver?
You're right: I wouldn't have a hooker who can't throw the ball in in my team.
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8 comments:
It is stunning.
Whenever I look at these FLW houses I'm always thinking the same thing:
It looks great now, but what happens when it rains and the water levels rise?
It's like that waterfall house, it's practically unliveable and requires constant maintenance.
Venetians have lived on water for centuries.
A boat always requires constant maintenance and that never stops anyone fishing.
G-Man, thinking something and there being something about which you're thinking are not necessarily the same thing.
"It looks great now, but what happens when it rains and the water levels rise? "
It's been raining since 1939, and no problems have been reported.
So much for that 'problem.'
"It's like that waterfall house, it's practically unliveable and requires constant maintenance. "
In fact the "waterfall house" was superbly liveable, as the Kaufmann family whose house it was reported all too frequently. Read Edgar Kaufmann Jr's book of the house if you want confirmation.
Maintenance? Every house needs maintenance. However, maintenance hadn't been done for years by the government department that now owns the house -- and for which they receive several hundred thousand dollars a year in visitors' contributions -- and this was one of the chief reasons the house recently needed repairs. This by the way was a full seventy years after it was built. What finally brought it low was not the storms, floods and violent forces of nature that it rode out of for most of those eventy years, but twenty or so years of being looked after by bureaucrats.
i stand corrected.
Which brings up the point: should form follow function or the other way around?
I know this is a terrible analogy, but the other day I was making the case that Anton Oliver's days should be very numbered--he can't throw a ball straight to save himself, my friend said that he was just so good looking in loose play.
So F----king what? his prime role is to throw the ball in, that is a prerequisite, it wouldn't matter if he could prove a mathematical theory or negoiate a peace treaty between scrums: if he can't throw the ball in straight then he's gone.
There are a lot of buildings in wellington, in whcich I think they have not met the function before going for form.
I am NOT trying to sound like Ellsworth Toohey here.
I rejoice in aesthetics and creation, but if they can't throw the bloody ball in straight....
"...should form follow function or the other way around?"
Good question. Answering it could be a good post, considering that asking and answering it has occupied architects for well over a century.
The dictum, that form follows function, was first formulated by Frank Lloyd Wright's mentor, Louis Sullivan, in opposing the form-free stylists who applied candy floss and copied styles to new buildings with modern functions.
But it wasn't just a 'razor' to cut off the excrescences of fashion.
To Sullivan, the dictum meant rather more than the simple mechanistic approach to form adopted by the ‘glass-box boys’ who followed him – his was a much richer, much more organic conception:
"And amid the immense number and variety of living forms, I noted that invariably the form expressed the function, as, for instance, the oak tree expressed the function oak, the pine tree expressed the function pine, and so on through the amazing series. And, inquiring more deeply, I discovered that in truth it was not simply a matter of form expressing function, but the vital idea was this: That the function created or organised its form… "
So form follows function -- or rather: the function creates or organises its own form.
But this dictum quickly became a password for sterility when the 'glass-box boys' got hold of it -- or as you say of the mediocrities around Wellington, when they've ignored it altogether.
As to whether function or form comes first, Frank Lloyd Wright reckoned he'd hit upon "a higher truth," that FORM AND FUNCTION ARE ONE. In other words, form both follows function, and affects it, a truth lost on both the Frank Gehry school of post-modern masturbation and on the 'glass box boys' around the world.
Winston Churchill would have agreed: writing on Churchill in 'Recombinant Architecture - Façade/Interface' the authors commented: "There [is] a complementarity of life and bricks and mortar, like that of snail and shell. If there was a mismatch, then the building had to be modified or the institution was forced to adapt. ... remarking on the British Houses of Parliament, Winston Churchill cast this point into a much-quoted aphorism: "We make our buildings and our buildings make us"."
"I am NOT trying to sound like Ellsworth Toohey here."
And thank goodness for that. The only function Ellsworth appreciated was the means of getting one neck in one noose by means of promoting mediocrity. ;^)
And how about Anton Oliver?
You're right: I wouldn't have a hooker who can't throw the ball in in my team.
But does a hooker have to throw the ball in?
This house was actually built in Midland, Michigan - http://www.abdow.org/
@Brittany: Oops, thanks for the correction.
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