Why “Form Follows Function”

For those wondering about the site’s title, it (like many concepts in the practice of virtual architecture) is taken from the world of physical architecture. Louis Sullivan was an influential Chicago-area architect and mentor of Frank Lloyd Wright, who became known as the “father of skyscrapers” as well as the “father of modernism”. Sullivan’s philosophy (one that certainly applies to application design) was that, above all, the design should reflect its intended use. That philosophy was laid out in an 1896 article, The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered:

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’s words aptly convey the prime principle for all architects and it is in tribute to him that I take the common paraphrase “Form follows function” as the title for this site.