To post a Sullivan’s building seems a bit intellectually lazy, so I tried to find an image of a Greek Temple juxtaposing with a skyscraper and this is the best I can find. Despite his common association with functionalism, I think Sullivan expresses his interest in establishing the proper order for a new type of architecture in reference with the old order.
My reading response:
In 1901, Louis Sullivan wrote the essay entitled “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered” to express his ideal for the new type of architecture. His essay responded to two issues at the time: the majority of the tall buildings constructed were burdened with excessive and redundant architectural expressions; the pre-dominant ideas among the critics were that trinity should be the guiding principle in the architectural composition. Sullivan argued instead that any pre-determined geometric rules should be secondary and there is only one law in nature, which is famously termed as “form follows function.”
More than a century later, I am still confronted with the optimism in reason and logic and the assertiveness and persuasiveness in his language, and then my initial response is that “I am not sure if it can be this simple”. Admittedly, the three-word motto is an effective and probably a popular way of making a bold statement, but when thinking about it twice, which has also been proved by later developments in history, that “form follows function” is vague statement, particularly when it is being extended to the design for any types of modernism buildings. It is often associated with the idea of utilitarianism, but for Sullivan, rather than pure economic concerns, he regarded his idea to be the overture for a new era in the architecture world and there were more ethical concerns as well. Many of his followers interpret his idea to be that the appearance of a piece of architecture should be the truth expression of its interior. This way of thinking has a profound impact even in today’s architecture education, as the students are indoctrinated to start design by studying the program, and the exterior of the building should always be the result of the interior organization. However, it proved to be insufficient to explain the reality in the design field. Taken the Gothic cathedrals as an example, which was mentioned by Sullivan as the physical manifestation of the law of “form follows function” along with the Greek Temple and the medieval fortress, if the function of the cathedral is to provide people with a religious experience, it would be difficult to understand why they got exceedingly tall to the point of threatening structural stability. Architectural form is not always subject to programmatic need.
It is fair to say that Sullivan proposed one way of approaching architecture design and our time is not content with that perspective or any one single perspective. The belief of truthfulness in the architectural expression or a universal law has collapsed due to the recognition of pluralism in the way of understanding the world. In other words, the form of architecture has been liberated from Sullivan’s rigid guidelines today thanks to development of building technology. It seems that free-spirit or skepticism becomes a more common attitude in the critique of architectural form.
SHI NING 