Structuralist Study of Poverty'Onion'
12.14.2009
12.11.2009
12.10.2009
12.07.2009
12.02.2009
11.23.2009
11.17.2009
11.15.2009
11.04.2009
11.01.2009
10.31.2009
Plasticine
60 OM4 or tenn #10 for a lighter color
18 beeswax, micro-crystalline wax, or parrafin
15 petroleum jelly
7 mineral oil
candy thermometer
Melt wax, oil, and grease together; stir clay in slowly. Pour into shallow microwave-safe plastic containers, or into a wet plaster mold. 18 quart turkey roaster will make about 33 lbs of clay
18 beeswax, micro-crystalline wax, or parrafin
15 petroleum jelly
7 mineral oil
candy thermometer
Melt @ 250 Degrees
Melt wax, oil, and grease together; stir clay in slowly. Pour into shallow microwave-safe plastic containers, or into a wet plaster mold. 18 quart turkey roaster will make about 33 lbs of clay
10.30.2009
10.28.2009
10.24.2009
10.23.2009
COMPONENT OBJECT MODEL
CoCreateInstance(CLSID_MyObject,
NULL,
CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER,
IID_IMyObject,
(void**)&m_pIMyObject);
ISomeObject* pISomeObject = NULL;
if (pIClassFactory)
{
pIClassFactory->CreateInstance (NULL,
IID_ISomeObject,
(LPVOID*)&pISomeObject);
pIClassFactory->Release();
pIClassFactory = NULL;
}
NULL,
CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER,
IID_IMyObject,
(void**)&m_pIMyObject);
ISomeObject* pISomeObject = NULL;
if (pIClassFactory)
{
pIClassFactory->CreateInstance (NULL,
IID_ISomeObject,
(LPVOID*)&pISomeObject);
pIClassFactory->Release();
pIClassFactory = NULL;
}
10.22.2009
10.21.2009
Kisho Kurokawa
Helix City, project Tokyo, Japan Plan
(unbuilt) 1961
Description Unbuilt Excerpt from Envisioning Architecture catalogue (essay by Paola Antonelli): "Kisho Kurokawa was a leading member of the Metabolist movement in Japanese architecture of the 1960s, a movement reflecting the belief that cities could be designed according to organic paradigms. Metabolist architects hoped that the use of biological processes as models would give them efficient ways to deal with the rapid growth and technological progress of societies all over the world. Their design philosophy involved gigantic buildings, of a size that Le Corbusier had envisioned and sometimes built in past decades. This monumental scale reflected operations they also saw at work in contemporary urban growth; their buildings were to become nodes in the organic fabric of the rapidly growing city. The Metabolist architect Fumihiko Maki is credited with coining the word "megastructure," in an essay of 1961; he defined it as "a large frame in which all the functions of a city or part of a city are housed . . . [the frame is] made possible by present-day technology." For the international movement of architects trying to design the ideal city of the future, "megastructure" became a key word. Kurokawa's impressive Helix City Project envisioned an organic city plan, shown in this drawing, based on service towers connected by an infrastructure of bridges spanning both land and sea. Residential buildings would neatly fill the spaces between, and the pattern could be repeated ad infinitum. Kurokawa, who had worked with Kenzo Tange on his generative Plan for Tokyo of 1960, based his architecture "on the principle of life," he stated in 1998. More than a utopian vision, his Helix City shows an attempt to respond to the dramatic shortage of dwelling space in modern Japan by distributing the built environment in a more structured and sensible way."
Helix City, project Tokyo, Japan Plan
(unbuilt) 1961
Description Unbuilt Excerpt from Envisioning Architecture catalogue (essay by Paola Antonelli): "Kisho Kurokawa was a leading member of the Metabolist movement in Japanese architecture of the 1960s, a movement reflecting the belief that cities could be designed according to organic paradigms. Metabolist architects hoped that the use of biological processes as models would give them efficient ways to deal with the rapid growth and technological progress of societies all over the world. Their design philosophy involved gigantic buildings, of a size that Le Corbusier had envisioned and sometimes built in past decades. This monumental scale reflected operations they also saw at work in contemporary urban growth; their buildings were to become nodes in the organic fabric of the rapidly growing city. The Metabolist architect Fumihiko Maki is credited with coining the word "megastructure," in an essay of 1961; he defined it as "a large frame in which all the functions of a city or part of a city are housed . . . [the frame is] made possible by present-day technology." For the international movement of architects trying to design the ideal city of the future, "megastructure" became a key word. Kurokawa's impressive Helix City Project envisioned an organic city plan, shown in this drawing, based on service towers connected by an infrastructure of bridges spanning both land and sea. Residential buildings would neatly fill the spaces between, and the pattern could be repeated ad infinitum. Kurokawa, who had worked with Kenzo Tange on his generative Plan for Tokyo of 1960, based his architecture "on the principle of life," he stated in 1998. More than a utopian vision, his Helix City shows an attempt to respond to the dramatic shortage of dwelling space in modern Japan by distributing the built environment in a more structured and sensible way."
Ettore Sottsass,
The Planet as Festival: Study for Rafts for Listening to Chamber Music, project Perspective
Date Drawing date: 1972-73
(Unbuilt) "Concerned with the deterioration of urban life, Ettore Sottsass used The Planet as Festival series to depict a utopian land where all of humanity would be free from work and social conditioning. In his futuristic vision goods are free, abundantly produced, and distributed throughout the globe. Freed from banks, supermarkets, and subways, individuals can 'come to know by means of their bodies, their psyche, and their sex, that they are living.' Once consciousness has been reawakened, technology would be used to heighten self-awareness, and life would be in harmony with nature. The Planet as Festival drawings are black-and-white studies for hand-colored lithographs. They depict such "super-instruments" for entertainment as a monolithic dispenser for incense, drugs, and laughing gas set in a campground, rafts for listening to chamber music on a river, and a stadium to watch the stars." Bevin Cline and Tina di Carlo in "The Changing of the Avant-Garde: Visionary Architectural Drawings from the Howard Gilman Collection" (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002).
source: ArtStor database
The Planet as Festival: Study for Rafts for Listening to Chamber Music, project Perspective
Date Drawing date: 1972-73
(Unbuilt) "Concerned with the deterioration of urban life, Ettore Sottsass used The Planet as Festival series to depict a utopian land where all of humanity would be free from work and social conditioning. In his futuristic vision goods are free, abundantly produced, and distributed throughout the globe. Freed from banks, supermarkets, and subways, individuals can 'come to know by means of their bodies, their psyche, and their sex, that they are living.' Once consciousness has been reawakened, technology would be used to heighten self-awareness, and life would be in harmony with nature. The Planet as Festival drawings are black-and-white studies for hand-colored lithographs. They depict such "super-instruments" for entertainment as a monolithic dispenser for incense, drugs, and laughing gas set in a campground, rafts for listening to chamber music on a river, and a stadium to watch the stars." Bevin Cline and Tina di Carlo in "The Changing of the Avant-Garde: Visionary Architectural Drawings from the Howard Gilman Collection" (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002).
source: ArtStor database
Superstudio 1966-1982
Adolfo Natalini,
Cristiano Toraldo di Francia,
Alessandro Magris,
Roberto Magris,
Gian Piero Frassinelli,
Title The Continuous Monument: New York Extrusion, project New York City, New York Aerial perspective
Project date: 1969
Description Unbuilt "In the context of utopian European architecture of the late 1960s and '70s, Superstudio was the most poetic and incisive group to come out of Italy. Founded in Florence in 1966 by Cristiano Toraldo di Francia and Adolfo Natalini, who were then joined by Gian Piero Frassinelli, Alessandro Magris, Roberto Magris and later Alessandro Poli, the group contributed powerful visions to the international movement that was attempting to design the ideal city of the future. Clearly inspired by the style of the British Pop art movement and the Independent Group, Superstudio displayed remarkable rendering skills in their stunning drawings and photomontages. This image depicts a Manhattan 'by the yard,' a monumental extrusion of the cityscape's profile. In Natalini's words, the Continuous Monument is "a single piece of architecture to be extended over the whole world. [Its] static perfection moves the world through the love that it creates, [through] serenity and calm, [and through its] sweet tyranny.' The members of Superstudio, like many of their architect contemporaries, were searching for a new paradigm for the city. They had an optimistic take on urban sprawl, which today is viewed as simultaneously inevitable, unsustainable, and largely negative but at the time seemed part of a global movement toward urbanization that appeared to many as a glorious model for the future. Quoting Karl Marx, the father figure of communism, and Guy Debord, the theoretician of the society of the spectacle, Superstudio were at once esoteric, youthful, and exuberant. Lying on the border of science fiction, their work was a quintessential product of the imagination and ideology of the period, and still surprises and inspires radical architects today." Paola Antonelli in "Envisoning Architecture: Drawings from The Museum of Modern Art" (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002). "Superstudio was founded by five architects in Florence in 1966, and became the most poetic and incisive group to come out of Italy in the ensuing decade. Their purely theoretical drawings from The Continuous Monument series illustrate their conviction that by extending a single piece of architecture over the entire world they could 'put cosmic order on earth.' In the urban context, The New York Extrusion extends the city's profile over a section of Manhattan, and grafts nature to it by reflecting the blue sky in tops of the buildings. In the other drawings, there are white, gridded, monolithic structures that span the natural landscape to assert rational order upon it. Superstudio saw this singular unifying act, unlike many modern utopian schemes, as nurturing rather than obliterating the natural world." Bevin Cline and Tina di Carlo in "The Changing of the Avant-Garde: Visionary Architectural Drawings from the Howard Gilman Collection" (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002).
Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation
Exhibitions: The Museum of Modern Art, New York. "Open Ends: Architecture Hot and Cold." September 29, 2000-January 2, 2001.
Cristiano Toraldo di Francia,
Alessandro Magris,
Roberto Magris,
Gian Piero Frassinelli,
Title The Continuous Monument: New York Extrusion, project New York City, New York Aerial perspective
Project date: 1969
Description Unbuilt "In the context of utopian European architecture of the late 1960s and '70s, Superstudio was the most poetic and incisive group to come out of Italy. Founded in Florence in 1966 by Cristiano Toraldo di Francia and Adolfo Natalini, who were then joined by Gian Piero Frassinelli, Alessandro Magris, Roberto Magris and later Alessandro Poli, the group contributed powerful visions to the international movement that was attempting to design the ideal city of the future. Clearly inspired by the style of the British Pop art movement and the Independent Group, Superstudio displayed remarkable rendering skills in their stunning drawings and photomontages. This image depicts a Manhattan 'by the yard,' a monumental extrusion of the cityscape's profile. In Natalini's words, the Continuous Monument is "a single piece of architecture to be extended over the whole world. [Its] static perfection moves the world through the love that it creates, [through] serenity and calm, [and through its] sweet tyranny.' The members of Superstudio, like many of their architect contemporaries, were searching for a new paradigm for the city. They had an optimistic take on urban sprawl, which today is viewed as simultaneously inevitable, unsustainable, and largely negative but at the time seemed part of a global movement toward urbanization that appeared to many as a glorious model for the future. Quoting Karl Marx, the father figure of communism, and Guy Debord, the theoretician of the society of the spectacle, Superstudio were at once esoteric, youthful, and exuberant. Lying on the border of science fiction, their work was a quintessential product of the imagination and ideology of the period, and still surprises and inspires radical architects today." Paola Antonelli in "Envisoning Architecture: Drawings from The Museum of Modern Art" (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002). "Superstudio was founded by five architects in Florence in 1966, and became the most poetic and incisive group to come out of Italy in the ensuing decade. Their purely theoretical drawings from The Continuous Monument series illustrate their conviction that by extending a single piece of architecture over the entire world they could 'put cosmic order on earth.' In the urban context, The New York Extrusion extends the city's profile over a section of Manhattan, and grafts nature to it by reflecting the blue sky in tops of the buildings. In the other drawings, there are white, gridded, monolithic structures that span the natural landscape to assert rational order upon it. Superstudio saw this singular unifying act, unlike many modern utopian schemes, as nurturing rather than obliterating the natural world." Bevin Cline and Tina di Carlo in "The Changing of the Avant-Garde: Visionary Architectural Drawings from the Howard Gilman Collection" (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002).
Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation
Exhibitions: The Museum of Modern Art, New York. "Open Ends: Architecture Hot and Cold." September 29, 2000-January 2, 2001.
Unbuilt Painting by Zoe Zenghelis. Excerpt from Envisioning Architecture catalogue (essay by Terence Riley): '...Koolhaas, German Martinez, and Richard Perlmutter designed the theoretical New Welfare Island Project for just the southern half of Roosevelt Island (once called Welfare Island). At the top of the aerial view, the Queensboro Bridge passes through a convention center, a monumental gateway to Manhattan. Farther south, a 'tecton'-a Suprematist device from the work of Kasimir Malevich-hovers over a streamlined Art Deco yacht designed in 1932 by Norman Bel Geddes. At the island's tip the six towers of the New Welfare Hotel rise up opposite a wandering fragment of Manhattan that includes Rockefeller Center and Times Square (including the proposed Sphinx Hotel, designed by Elia and Zoe Zenghelis). The New Welfare Hotel, designed by Koolhaas, Perlmutter, and Derrick Snare, is separately rendered in the third drawing; it is a center for dancing, dining, and general urban pleasure. Overall, Koolhaas writes, the Roosevelt Island project 'is intended as a visual interpretation and resuscitation of some of the themes that made Manhattan's architecture unique; its ability to fuse the popular with the metaphysical, the commercial with the sublime, the refined with the primitive.'' (See 1206.2000 and 1207.2000 for the remainder of this essay) (Essay also meant to accompany 1206.2000, 1207.2000, 1209.2000) 'Rem Koolhaas, German Martinez, and Richard Perlmutter designed New Welfare Island for the south end of Roosevelt Island (once known as Welfare Island). This theoretical project extended Manhattan's grid, in this case between Fiftieth and Fifty-ninth streets, onto the island, in a manner similar to that used for Koolhaas's and Zenghelis's Roosevelt Island Redevelopment competition entry. Each newly created lot was intended to support competing structures-formally, ideologically, and programmatically-corresponding to what they viewed as Manhattan's dominant characteristic. Just north of the 'travelator,' a moving pavement extending to the rivers, is a convention center. To its south, amid vacant lots reserved for future use, are Kazimir Malevich's 'Architecton,' an interior harbor housing a 1932Norman Bel Geddes yacht, and a 'Chinese' swimming pool. The New Welfare Hotel, a city within a city, which looks toward Manhattan, is situated at the bottom of the island.' Bevin Cline and Tina di Carlo in 'The Changing of the Avant-Garde: Visionary Architectural Drawings from the Howard Gilman Collection'
Source: ArtStor.com image database
Source: ArtStor.com image database
de Stijl
Theo van Doesburg,
Cornelis Van Eesteren,
Contra-Construction Project Axonometric
1923
Unbuilt Project for a private house. Excerpt from Envisioning Architecture catalogue (essay by Peter Reed): "With the zeal of a crusader, Theo van Doesburg, the prolific writer, painter, and cofounder of the avant-garde Dutch movement de Stijl, promoted a new order uniting art and life. In his utopian quest for a universal ideal, cleansed of social and artistic conventions but not without moral and spiritual dimensions, van Doesburg predicated a formal language of abstraction on the rectangle, primary colors (red, blue, and yellow), and asymmetrically balanced compositions. To suggest what a de Stijl environment might look like, van Doesburg enlisted the assistance of the architect Cornelis van Eesteren. In 1923 the two men mounted a landmark exhibition at Léonce Rosenberg's Galerie L'Effort Moderne in Paris. This so-called "Contra-Construction" was among the works exhibited. The Contra-Construction is not a study for a specific building but a meditation on a new kind of architectural space and structure. Serving as a demonstration of the ideas in the artists' manifestos, the composition-an axonometric placed diagonally on the paper-is key to understanding their aims. The construction seems to float on the sheet, divorced from time or place. The high vantage point lets us see many sides at once, but we have no clear understanding of front, side, or back, or of inside and out. Horizontal and vertical planes define a complex of asymmetrical volumes around a central open core. Color is a constructive element, applied to elements running the height, length, and width of the construction. The planes have an atectonic character, being divorced from a supporting function. The spatial relations and sense of freedom in the composition underscore van Doesburg's overarching goal: to liberate humanity from material things through a new form of modernism. "
Gift of Edgar Kaufmann, Jr.
Cornelis Van Eesteren,
Contra-Construction Project Axonometric
1923
Unbuilt Project for a private house. Excerpt from Envisioning Architecture catalogue (essay by Peter Reed): "With the zeal of a crusader, Theo van Doesburg, the prolific writer, painter, and cofounder of the avant-garde Dutch movement de Stijl, promoted a new order uniting art and life. In his utopian quest for a universal ideal, cleansed of social and artistic conventions but not without moral and spiritual dimensions, van Doesburg predicated a formal language of abstraction on the rectangle, primary colors (red, blue, and yellow), and asymmetrically balanced compositions. To suggest what a de Stijl environment might look like, van Doesburg enlisted the assistance of the architect Cornelis van Eesteren. In 1923 the two men mounted a landmark exhibition at Léonce Rosenberg's Galerie L'Effort Moderne in Paris. This so-called "Contra-Construction" was among the works exhibited. The Contra-Construction is not a study for a specific building but a meditation on a new kind of architectural space and structure. Serving as a demonstration of the ideas in the artists' manifestos, the composition-an axonometric placed diagonally on the paper-is key to understanding their aims. The construction seems to float on the sheet, divorced from time or place. The high vantage point lets us see many sides at once, but we have no clear understanding of front, side, or back, or of inside and out. Horizontal and vertical planes define a complex of asymmetrical volumes around a central open core. Color is a constructive element, applied to elements running the height, length, and width of the construction. The planes have an atectonic character, being divorced from a supporting function. The spatial relations and sense of freedom in the composition underscore van Doesburg's overarching goal: to liberate humanity from material things through a new form of modernism. "
Gift of Edgar Kaufmann, Jr.
10.20.2009
Image - Tomb for Arnold Hauser (1892-1978), Adolf Loos (1921)
LAST RITES / THE ANTI-MILIEU - "M. de Lemarck distinguished between nature and life. In his eyes, nature was stone and ash, a granite tomb, death. Life came into play only as a strange and singularly productive accident, a prolonged struggle with here or there more or less balance or success, but always finally defeated in the end; cold motionlessness reigned afterwards as before." --Charles Sainte-Beuve, Volupt� (1834), cited in Georges Canguilhem, "The Living and Its Milieu", Grey Room 03 (Spring 2001), p. 30 (Note 12) / "Somewhere and nowhere in every Derridean topography is a secret place, a crypt whose coordinates cannot be plotted. This place exceeds any ordinary topographical placement." J. H. Miller, Topographies (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), p. 296, cited in Paivi Kym�l�inen, "Topologies of Becoming: Deferred Presence in Writing", Space & Culture, Vol 6, No. 3 (August 2003), p. 245 (Epigraph) ...
LAST RITES / THE ANTI-MILIEU - "M. de Lemarck distinguished between nature and life. In his eyes, nature was stone and ash, a granite tomb, death. Life came into play only as a strange and singularly productive accident, a prolonged struggle with here or there more or less balance or success, but always finally defeated in the end; cold motionlessness reigned afterwards as before." --Charles Sainte-Beuve, Volupt� (1834), cited in Georges Canguilhem, "The Living and Its Milieu", Grey Room 03 (Spring 2001), p. 30 (Note 12) / "Somewhere and nowhere in every Derridean topography is a secret place, a crypt whose coordinates cannot be plotted. This place exceeds any ordinary topographical placement." J. H. Miller, Topographies (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), p. 296, cited in Paivi Kym�l�inen, "Topologies of Becoming: Deferred Presence in Writing", Space & Culture, Vol 6, No. 3 (August 2003), p. 245 (Epigraph) ...
Image - Karel Teige, Collage 286Image (above, left) - Karel Teige, Collage 286
Notes from the Introduction by Jean Molino (1986) / "Form [...] 'sets up within history an immutable order,' an autonomous reality that presents itself as a 'fourth realm' added to the three realms of the physical world." (p. 11) / "'The most attentive study of the most homogeneous milieu, of the most closely woven concatenation of circumstances, will not serve to give us the design of the towers of Laon.'" (p. 13) / "There exists, then, a world of artistic forms; but what is a form? The first move is, if not to define it, at least to see the model for it in contour or diagram, the shadow thrown by a body exposed to the sun, the play of cracks and fissures on the wall where Leonardo saw warriors and clouds take on outlines." (p. 16) / Karl Popper: First World (physical), Second World (subjective), Third World (symbolic) (p. 20) / "'[F]orm signifies only itself ...'" (p. 21) / Worringer-Wolfflin: psychodynamics of art / Panofsky-Warburg: iconography/iconology / Foucault: spasmodic histories and ruptures / "[F]orm and significance ..." (p. 21) / Signifier and signified - "Sign: index, sign, icon, symbol" / Artistic form is none of these but can become any of the four forms of sign ... (p. 21) / "The meaning of form is above all the rhythm of the body, the movement of the hand, the curve of the gesture. It is only at a second stage that the various levels of conceptual signification become articulated and attached to form." (p. 21) / See 'field' notes on sub-linguistic territories ... / "[F]orms are caught in a perpetual metamorphosis ..." (p. 26) / "'Rembrandt's sketches swarm across Rembrandt's paintings ...'" (p. 27) / "O memories! O horrible form of the hills!" Victor Hugo (p. 27)
Notes from the Introduction by Jean Molino (1986) / "Form [...] 'sets up within history an immutable order,' an autonomous reality that presents itself as a 'fourth realm' added to the three realms of the physical world." (p. 11) / "'The most attentive study of the most homogeneous milieu, of the most closely woven concatenation of circumstances, will not serve to give us the design of the towers of Laon.'" (p. 13) / "There exists, then, a world of artistic forms; but what is a form? The first move is, if not to define it, at least to see the model for it in contour or diagram, the shadow thrown by a body exposed to the sun, the play of cracks and fissures on the wall where Leonardo saw warriors and clouds take on outlines." (p. 16) / Karl Popper: First World (physical), Second World (subjective), Third World (symbolic) (p. 20) / "'[F]orm signifies only itself ...'" (p. 21) / Worringer-Wolfflin: psychodynamics of art / Panofsky-Warburg: iconography/iconology / Foucault: spasmodic histories and ruptures / "[F]orm and significance ..." (p. 21) / Signifier and signified - "Sign: index, sign, icon, symbol" / Artistic form is none of these but can become any of the four forms of sign ... (p. 21) / "The meaning of form is above all the rhythm of the body, the movement of the hand, the curve of the gesture. It is only at a second stage that the various levels of conceptual signification become articulated and attached to form." (p. 21) / See 'field' notes on sub-linguistic territories ... / "[F]orms are caught in a perpetual metamorphosis ..." (p. 26) / "'Rembrandt's sketches swarm across Rembrandt's paintings ...'" (p. 27) / "O memories! O horrible form of the hills!" Victor Hugo (p. 27)
10.19.2009
form follows function
the tall office building artistically considered
by louis h. sullivan, march, 1896
The architects of this land and generation are now brought face to face with something new under the sun namely, that evolution and integration of social conditions, that special grouping of them, that results in a demand for the erection of tall office buildings.
It is not my purpose to discuss the social conditions; I accept them as the fact, and say at once that the design of the tall office building must be recognized and confronted at the outset as a problem to be solved a vital problem, pressing for a true solution.
Let us state the conditions in the plainest manner. Briefly, they are these: offices are necessary for the transaction of business; the invention and perfection of the high speed elevators make vertical travel, that was once tedious and painful, now easy and comfortable; development of steel manufacture has shown the way to safe, rigid, economical constructions rising to a great height; continued growth of population in the great cities, consequent congestion of centers and rise in value of ground, stimulate an increase in number of stories; these successfully piled one upon another, react on ground values and so on, by action and reaction, interaction and inter reaction. Thus has come about that form of lofty construction called the "modern office building". It has come in answer to a call, for in it a new grouping of social conditions has found a habitation and a name.
Up to this point all in evidence is materialistic, an exhibition of force, of resolution, of brains in the keen sense of the word. It is the joint product of the speculator, the engineer, the builder.
Problem: How shall we impart to this sterile pile, this crude, harsh, brutal agglomeration, this stark, staring exclamation of eternal strife, the graciousness of these higher forms of sensibility and culture that rest on the lower and fiercer passions? How shall we proclaim from the dizzy height of this strange, weird, modern housetop the peaceful evangel of sentiment, of beauty, the cult of a higher life?
This is the problem; and we must seek the solution of it in a process analogous to its own evolution indeed, a continuation of it namely, by proceeding step by step from general to special aspects, from coarser to finer considerations.
It is my belief that it is of the very essence of every problem that is 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.
The practical conditions are, broadly speaking, these:Wanted 1st, a story below ground, containing boiler, engines of various sorts, etc. in short, the plant for power, heating, lighting, etc. 2nd, a ground floor, so called, devoted to stores, banks, or other establishments requiring large area, ample spacing, ample light, and great freedom of access, 3rd, a second story readily accessible by stairways this space usually in large subdivisions, with corresponding liberality in structural spacing and expanse of glass and breadth of external openings, 4th, above this an indefinite number of stories of offices piled tier upon tier, one tier just like another tier, one office just like all the other offices an office being similar to a cell in honey comb, merely a compartment, nothing more, 5th, and last, at the top of this pile is placed a space or story that, as related to the life and usefulness of the structure, is purely physiological in its nature namely, the attic. In this the circulatory system completes itself and makes it grand turn, ascending and descending. The space is filled with tanks, pipes, valves, sheaves, and mechanical etcetera that supplement and complement the force originating plant hidden below ground in the cellar. Finally, or at the beginning rather, there must be on the ground floor a main aperture or entrance common to all the occupants or patrons of the building.
This tabulation is, in the main, characteristic of every tall office building in the country. As to the necessary arrangements for light courts, these are not germane to the problem, and as will become soon evident, I trust need not be considered here. These things, and such others as the arrangement of elevators, for example, have to do strictly with the economics of the building, and I assume them to have been fully considered and disposed of to the satisfaction of purely utilitarian and pecuniary demands. Only in rare instances does the plan or floor arrangement of the tall office building take on an aesthetic value, and thus usually when the lighting court is external or becomes an internal feature of great importance.
As I am here seeking not for an individual or special solution, but for a true normal type, the attention must be confined to those conditions that, in the main, are constant in all tall office buildings, and every mere incidental and accidental variation eliminated from the consideration, as harmful to the clearness of the main inquiry.
The practical horizontal and vertical division or office unit is naturally based on a room of comfortable area and height, and the size of this standard office room as naturally predetermines the standard structural unit, and, approximately, the size of window openings. In turn, these purely arbitrary units of structure form in an equally natural way the true basis of the artistic development of the exterior. Of course the structural spacings and openings in the first or mercantile story are required to be the largest of all; those in the second or quasi mercantile story are of a some what similar nature. The spacings and openings in the attic are of no importance whatsoever the windows have no actual value, for light may be taken from the top, and no recognition of a cellular division is necessary in the structural spacing.
Hence it follow inevitably, and in the simplest possible way, that if we follow our natural instincts without thought of books, rules, precedents, or any such educational impediments to a spontaneous and "sensible" result, we will in the following manner design the exterior of our tall office building to wit:Beginning with the first story, we give this a min entrance that attracts the eye to it location, and the remainder of the story we treat in a more or less liberal, expansive, sumptuous way a way based exactly on the practical necessities, but expressed with a sentiment of largeness and freedom. The second story we treat in a similar way, but usually with milder pretension. Above this, throughout the indefinite number of typical office tiers, we take our cue from the individual cell, which requires a window with its separating pier, its still and lintel, and we, without more ado, make them look all alike because they are all alike. This brings us to the attic, which having no division into office cells, and no special requirement for lighting, gives us the power to show by means of its broad expanse of wall, and its dominating weight and character, that which is the fact namely, that the series of office tiers has come definitely to an end.
This may perhaps seem a bald result and a heartless, pessimistic way of stating it, but even so we certainly have advanced a most characteristic stage beyond the imagined sinister building of the speculator engineer builder combination. For the hand of the architect is now definitely felt in the decisive position at once taken, and the suggestion of a thoroughly sound, logical, coherent expression of the conditions is becoming apparent.
When I say the hand of the architect, I do not mean necessarily the accomplished and trained architect. I mean only a man with a strong, natural liking for buildings, and a disposition to shape them in what seems to his unaffected nature a direct and simple way. He will probably tread an innocent path from his problem to its solution, and therein he will show an enviable gift of logic. If we have some gift for form in detail, some feeling for form purely and simply as form, some love for that, his result in addition to it simple straightforward naturalness and completeness in general statement, will have something of the charm of sentiment.
However, thus far the results are only partial and tentative at best relatively true, they are but superficial. We are doubtless right in our instinct but we must seek a fuller justification, a finer sanction, for it.
I assume now that in the study of our problem we have passed through the various stages of inquiry, as follows: 1st, the social basis of the demand for tall buildings; 2nd, its literal material satisfaction; 3rd, the elevation of the question from considerations of literal planning, construction, and equipment, to the plane of elementary architecture as a direct outgrowth of sound, sensible building; 4th, the question again elevated from an elementary architecture to the beginnings of true architectural expression, through the addition of a certain quality and quantity of sentiment.
But our building may have all these in a considerable degree and yet be far from that adequate solution of the problem I am attempting to define. We must now heed quality and quantity of sentiment.
It demands of us, what is the chief characteristic of the tall office building? And at once we answer, it is lofty. This loftiness is to the artist nature its thrilling aspect. It is the very open organ tone in its appeal. It must be in turn the dominant chard in his expression of it, the true excitant of his imagination. It must be tall, every inch of it tall. The force and power of altitude must be in it, the glory and pride of exaltation must be in it. It must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exultation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line that it is the new, the unexpected, the eloquent peroration of most bald, most sinister, most forbidding conditions.
The man who designs in the spirit and with the sense of responsibility to the generation he lives in must be no coward, no denier, no bookworm, no dilettante. He must live of his life and for his life in the fullest, most consummate sense. He must realize at once and with the grasp of inspiration that the problem of the tall office building is one of the most stupendous, one of the most magnificent opportunities that the Lord of Nature in His beneficence has ever offered to the proud spirit of man.
That this has not been perceived indeed, has been flatly denied is an exhibition of human perversity that must give us pause.
One more consideration. Let us now lift this question into the region of calm, philosophic observation. Let us seek a comprehensive, a final solution: let the problem indeed dissolve.
Certain critics, and very thoughtful ones, have advanced the theory that the true prototype of the tall office building is the classical column, consisting of base, shaft and capital the molded base of the column typical of the lower stories of our building, the plain or fluted shaft suggesting the monotonous, uninterrupted series of office tiers, and the capital the completing power and luxuriance of the attic.
Other theorizers, assuming a mystical symbolism as a guide, quite the many trinities in nature and art, and the beauty and conclusiveness of such trinity in unity. They aver the beauty of prime numbers, the mysticism of the number three, the beauty of all things that are in three parts to wit, the day, subdividing into morning, noon, and night; the limbs, the thorax, and the head, constituting the body. So they say, should the building be in three parts vertically, substantially as before, but for different motives.
Others, of purely intellectual temperament, hold that such a design should be in the nature of a logical statement; it should have a beginning, a middle, and an ending, each clearly defined therefore again a building, as above, in three parts vertically.
Others, seeking their examples and justification in the vegetable kingdom, urge that such a design shall above all things be organic. They quote the suitable flower with its bunch of leaves at the earth, its long graceful stem, carrying the gorgeous single flower. They point to the pine tree, its massy roots, its lith, uninterrupted trunk, its tuft of green high in the air. Thus, they say, should be the design of the tall office building; again in three parts vertically. Others still, more susceptible to the power of a unit than to the grace of a trinity, say that such a design should be struck out at a blow, as though by a blacksmith or mighty Jove, or should by thought born, as was Minerva, full grown. They accept the notion of a triple division as permissible and welcome, but non essential. With them it is a subdivision of their unit: The unit does not come from the alliance of the three; they accept it without murmur, provided the subdivision does not disturb the sense of singleness and repose.
All of these critics and theorists agree, however, positively, unequivocally, in this, that the tall office building should not, must not, be made a held for the display of architectural knowledge in the encyclopedic sense; that too much learning in this instance is fully as dangerous, as obnoxious, as too little learning; that miscellany is abhorrent to their sense; that the sixteen story building must not consist of sixteen separate, distinct and unrelated buildings piled one upon the other until the top of the pile is reached.
To this latter folly I would not refer were it not the fact that nine out of every ten tall office buildings are designed in precisely this way in effect, not by the ignorant, but by the educated. It would seen indeed, as though the "trained" architect, when facing this problem, were beset at every story, or at most, every third or fourth story, by the hysterical dread lest he be in "bad form"; lest he be not bedecking his building in some other land and some other time; lest he be not copious enough in the display of his wares; lest he betray, in short, a lack of resource. To loosen up the touch of this cramped and fidgety hand, to allow the nerves to calm, the brain to cool, to reflect equably, to reason naturally, seems beyond him; he lives, as it were, in a waking nightmare filled with the disjecta membra of architecture. The spectacle is not inspiriting.
As to the former and serious views held by discerning and thoughtful critics, I shall, with however much of regret, dissent from them for the purpose of this demonstration, for I regard them as secondary only, non essential, and as touching not at all upon the vital spot, upon the quick of the entire matter, upon the true, the immovable philosophy of the architectural art.
This view let me now state, for it brings to the solution of the problem a final, comprehensive formula.All things in nature have a shape, that is to say, a form, an outward semblance, that tells us what they are, that distinguishes them from ourselves and from each other. Unfailing in nature these shapes express the inner life, the native quality of the animal, tree, bird, fish, that they present to us; they are so characteristic, so recognizable, that we say, simply, it is "natural" it should be so. Yet the moment we peer beneath this surface of things, the moment we look through the tranquil reflection of ourselves and the clouds above us, down into the clear, fluent, unfathomable depth of nature, how startling is the silence of it, how amazing the flow of life, how absorbing the mystery. Unceasingly the essence of things is taking shape in the matter of things, and this unspeakable process we call birth and growth. Awhile the spirit and the matter fade away together, and it is this that we call decadence, death. These two happenings seem jointed and interdependent, blended into one like a bubble and its iridescence, and they seem borne along upon a slowly moving air. This air is wonderful post all understanding.
Yet to the steadfast eye of one standing upon the shore of things, looking chiefly and most lovingly upon that side on which the sun shines and that we feel joyously to be life, the heart is ever gladdened by the beauty, the exquisite spontaneity, with which life seeks and takes on its forms in an accord perfectly responsive to its needs. It seems ever as though the life and the form were absolutely one and inseparable so adequate is the sense of fulfillment.
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.
Shall we, then, daily violate this law in our art? Are we so decadent, so imbecile, so utterly weak of eyesight, that we cannot perceive this truth so simple, so very simple? Is it indeed a truth so transparent that we see through it but do not see it? Is it really then, a very marvelous thing, or is it rather so commonplace, so everyday, so near a thing to us, that we cannot perceive that the shape, form, outward expression, design or whatever we may choose, of the tall office building should in the very nature of things follow the functions of the building, and that where the function does not change, the form is not to change?
Does this not readily, clearly, and conclusively show that the lower one or two stories will take on a special character suited to the special needs, that the tiers of typical offices, having the same unchanging function, shall continue in the same unchanging form, and that as to the attic, specific and conclusive as it is in its very nature, its function shall equally be so in force, in significance, in continuity, in conclusiveness of outward expression? From this results, naturally, spontaneously, unwittingly, a three part division, not form any theory, symbol, or fancied logic.
And thus the design of the tall office building takes its place with all other architectural types made when architecture, as has happened once in many years, was a living art. Witness the Greek temple, the Gothic cathedral, the medieval fortress.
And thus, when native instinct and sensibility shall govern the exercise of our beloved art; when the known law, the respected law, shall be that form ever follows function; when our architects shall cease struggling and prattling handcuffed and vainglorious in the asylum of a foreign school; when it is truly felt, cheerfully accepted, that this law opens up the airy sunshine of green fields, and gives to us a freedom that the very beauty and sumptuousness of the outworking of the law itself as exhibited in nature will deter any sane, any sensitive man from changing into license, when it becomes evident that we are merely speaking a foreign language with a noticeable American accent, whereas each and every architect in the land might, under the benign influence of this law, express in the simples, most modes, most natural way that which it is in him to say; that he might really and would surely develop his own characteristic individuality, and that the architectural art with him would certainly become a living form of speech, a natural form of utterance, giving surcease to him and adding treasures small and great to the growing art of his land; when we know and feel that Nature is our friend, not our implacable enemy that an afternoon in the country, an hour by the sea, a full open view of one single day, through dawn, high noon, and twilight, will suggest to us so much that is rhythmical, deep, and eternal in the vast art of architecture, something so deep, so true, that all the narrow formalities, hand and fast rules, and strangling bonds of the schools cannot stifle it in us then it may be proclaimed that we are on the high road to a natural and satisfying art, an architecture that will live because it will be of the people, for the people, and by the people.
by louis h. sullivan, march, 1896
The architects of this land and generation are now brought face to face with something new under the sun namely, that evolution and integration of social conditions, that special grouping of them, that results in a demand for the erection of tall office buildings.
It is not my purpose to discuss the social conditions; I accept them as the fact, and say at once that the design of the tall office building must be recognized and confronted at the outset as a problem to be solved a vital problem, pressing for a true solution.
Let us state the conditions in the plainest manner. Briefly, they are these: offices are necessary for the transaction of business; the invention and perfection of the high speed elevators make vertical travel, that was once tedious and painful, now easy and comfortable; development of steel manufacture has shown the way to safe, rigid, economical constructions rising to a great height; continued growth of population in the great cities, consequent congestion of centers and rise in value of ground, stimulate an increase in number of stories; these successfully piled one upon another, react on ground values and so on, by action and reaction, interaction and inter reaction. Thus has come about that form of lofty construction called the "modern office building". It has come in answer to a call, for in it a new grouping of social conditions has found a habitation and a name.
Up to this point all in evidence is materialistic, an exhibition of force, of resolution, of brains in the keen sense of the word. It is the joint product of the speculator, the engineer, the builder.
Problem: How shall we impart to this sterile pile, this crude, harsh, brutal agglomeration, this stark, staring exclamation of eternal strife, the graciousness of these higher forms of sensibility and culture that rest on the lower and fiercer passions? How shall we proclaim from the dizzy height of this strange, weird, modern housetop the peaceful evangel of sentiment, of beauty, the cult of a higher life?
This is the problem; and we must seek the solution of it in a process analogous to its own evolution indeed, a continuation of it namely, by proceeding step by step from general to special aspects, from coarser to finer considerations.
It is my belief that it is of the very essence of every problem that is 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.
The practical conditions are, broadly speaking, these:Wanted 1st, a story below ground, containing boiler, engines of various sorts, etc. in short, the plant for power, heating, lighting, etc. 2nd, a ground floor, so called, devoted to stores, banks, or other establishments requiring large area, ample spacing, ample light, and great freedom of access, 3rd, a second story readily accessible by stairways this space usually in large subdivisions, with corresponding liberality in structural spacing and expanse of glass and breadth of external openings, 4th, above this an indefinite number of stories of offices piled tier upon tier, one tier just like another tier, one office just like all the other offices an office being similar to a cell in honey comb, merely a compartment, nothing more, 5th, and last, at the top of this pile is placed a space or story that, as related to the life and usefulness of the structure, is purely physiological in its nature namely, the attic. In this the circulatory system completes itself and makes it grand turn, ascending and descending. The space is filled with tanks, pipes, valves, sheaves, and mechanical etcetera that supplement and complement the force originating plant hidden below ground in the cellar. Finally, or at the beginning rather, there must be on the ground floor a main aperture or entrance common to all the occupants or patrons of the building.
This tabulation is, in the main, characteristic of every tall office building in the country. As to the necessary arrangements for light courts, these are not germane to the problem, and as will become soon evident, I trust need not be considered here. These things, and such others as the arrangement of elevators, for example, have to do strictly with the economics of the building, and I assume them to have been fully considered and disposed of to the satisfaction of purely utilitarian and pecuniary demands. Only in rare instances does the plan or floor arrangement of the tall office building take on an aesthetic value, and thus usually when the lighting court is external or becomes an internal feature of great importance.
As I am here seeking not for an individual or special solution, but for a true normal type, the attention must be confined to those conditions that, in the main, are constant in all tall office buildings, and every mere incidental and accidental variation eliminated from the consideration, as harmful to the clearness of the main inquiry.
The practical horizontal and vertical division or office unit is naturally based on a room of comfortable area and height, and the size of this standard office room as naturally predetermines the standard structural unit, and, approximately, the size of window openings. In turn, these purely arbitrary units of structure form in an equally natural way the true basis of the artistic development of the exterior. Of course the structural spacings and openings in the first or mercantile story are required to be the largest of all; those in the second or quasi mercantile story are of a some what similar nature. The spacings and openings in the attic are of no importance whatsoever the windows have no actual value, for light may be taken from the top, and no recognition of a cellular division is necessary in the structural spacing.
Hence it follow inevitably, and in the simplest possible way, that if we follow our natural instincts without thought of books, rules, precedents, or any such educational impediments to a spontaneous and "sensible" result, we will in the following manner design the exterior of our tall office building to wit:Beginning with the first story, we give this a min entrance that attracts the eye to it location, and the remainder of the story we treat in a more or less liberal, expansive, sumptuous way a way based exactly on the practical necessities, but expressed with a sentiment of largeness and freedom. The second story we treat in a similar way, but usually with milder pretension. Above this, throughout the indefinite number of typical office tiers, we take our cue from the individual cell, which requires a window with its separating pier, its still and lintel, and we, without more ado, make them look all alike because they are all alike. This brings us to the attic, which having no division into office cells, and no special requirement for lighting, gives us the power to show by means of its broad expanse of wall, and its dominating weight and character, that which is the fact namely, that the series of office tiers has come definitely to an end.
This may perhaps seem a bald result and a heartless, pessimistic way of stating it, but even so we certainly have advanced a most characteristic stage beyond the imagined sinister building of the speculator engineer builder combination. For the hand of the architect is now definitely felt in the decisive position at once taken, and the suggestion of a thoroughly sound, logical, coherent expression of the conditions is becoming apparent.
When I say the hand of the architect, I do not mean necessarily the accomplished and trained architect. I mean only a man with a strong, natural liking for buildings, and a disposition to shape them in what seems to his unaffected nature a direct and simple way. He will probably tread an innocent path from his problem to its solution, and therein he will show an enviable gift of logic. If we have some gift for form in detail, some feeling for form purely and simply as form, some love for that, his result in addition to it simple straightforward naturalness and completeness in general statement, will have something of the charm of sentiment.
However, thus far the results are only partial and tentative at best relatively true, they are but superficial. We are doubtless right in our instinct but we must seek a fuller justification, a finer sanction, for it.
I assume now that in the study of our problem we have passed through the various stages of inquiry, as follows: 1st, the social basis of the demand for tall buildings; 2nd, its literal material satisfaction; 3rd, the elevation of the question from considerations of literal planning, construction, and equipment, to the plane of elementary architecture as a direct outgrowth of sound, sensible building; 4th, the question again elevated from an elementary architecture to the beginnings of true architectural expression, through the addition of a certain quality and quantity of sentiment.
But our building may have all these in a considerable degree and yet be far from that adequate solution of the problem I am attempting to define. We must now heed quality and quantity of sentiment.
It demands of us, what is the chief characteristic of the tall office building? And at once we answer, it is lofty. This loftiness is to the artist nature its thrilling aspect. It is the very open organ tone in its appeal. It must be in turn the dominant chard in his expression of it, the true excitant of his imagination. It must be tall, every inch of it tall. The force and power of altitude must be in it, the glory and pride of exaltation must be in it. It must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exultation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line that it is the new, the unexpected, the eloquent peroration of most bald, most sinister, most forbidding conditions.
The man who designs in the spirit and with the sense of responsibility to the generation he lives in must be no coward, no denier, no bookworm, no dilettante. He must live of his life and for his life in the fullest, most consummate sense. He must realize at once and with the grasp of inspiration that the problem of the tall office building is one of the most stupendous, one of the most magnificent opportunities that the Lord of Nature in His beneficence has ever offered to the proud spirit of man.
That this has not been perceived indeed, has been flatly denied is an exhibition of human perversity that must give us pause.
One more consideration. Let us now lift this question into the region of calm, philosophic observation. Let us seek a comprehensive, a final solution: let the problem indeed dissolve.
Certain critics, and very thoughtful ones, have advanced the theory that the true prototype of the tall office building is the classical column, consisting of base, shaft and capital the molded base of the column typical of the lower stories of our building, the plain or fluted shaft suggesting the monotonous, uninterrupted series of office tiers, and the capital the completing power and luxuriance of the attic.
Other theorizers, assuming a mystical symbolism as a guide, quite the many trinities in nature and art, and the beauty and conclusiveness of such trinity in unity. They aver the beauty of prime numbers, the mysticism of the number three, the beauty of all things that are in three parts to wit, the day, subdividing into morning, noon, and night; the limbs, the thorax, and the head, constituting the body. So they say, should the building be in three parts vertically, substantially as before, but for different motives.
Others, of purely intellectual temperament, hold that such a design should be in the nature of a logical statement; it should have a beginning, a middle, and an ending, each clearly defined therefore again a building, as above, in three parts vertically.
Others, seeking their examples and justification in the vegetable kingdom, urge that such a design shall above all things be organic. They quote the suitable flower with its bunch of leaves at the earth, its long graceful stem, carrying the gorgeous single flower. They point to the pine tree, its massy roots, its lith, uninterrupted trunk, its tuft of green high in the air. Thus, they say, should be the design of the tall office building; again in three parts vertically. Others still, more susceptible to the power of a unit than to the grace of a trinity, say that such a design should be struck out at a blow, as though by a blacksmith or mighty Jove, or should by thought born, as was Minerva, full grown. They accept the notion of a triple division as permissible and welcome, but non essential. With them it is a subdivision of their unit: The unit does not come from the alliance of the three; they accept it without murmur, provided the subdivision does not disturb the sense of singleness and repose.
All of these critics and theorists agree, however, positively, unequivocally, in this, that the tall office building should not, must not, be made a held for the display of architectural knowledge in the encyclopedic sense; that too much learning in this instance is fully as dangerous, as obnoxious, as too little learning; that miscellany is abhorrent to their sense; that the sixteen story building must not consist of sixteen separate, distinct and unrelated buildings piled one upon the other until the top of the pile is reached.
To this latter folly I would not refer were it not the fact that nine out of every ten tall office buildings are designed in precisely this way in effect, not by the ignorant, but by the educated. It would seen indeed, as though the "trained" architect, when facing this problem, were beset at every story, or at most, every third or fourth story, by the hysterical dread lest he be in "bad form"; lest he be not bedecking his building in some other land and some other time; lest he be not copious enough in the display of his wares; lest he betray, in short, a lack of resource. To loosen up the touch of this cramped and fidgety hand, to allow the nerves to calm, the brain to cool, to reflect equably, to reason naturally, seems beyond him; he lives, as it were, in a waking nightmare filled with the disjecta membra of architecture. The spectacle is not inspiriting.
As to the former and serious views held by discerning and thoughtful critics, I shall, with however much of regret, dissent from them for the purpose of this demonstration, for I regard them as secondary only, non essential, and as touching not at all upon the vital spot, upon the quick of the entire matter, upon the true, the immovable philosophy of the architectural art.
This view let me now state, for it brings to the solution of the problem a final, comprehensive formula.All things in nature have a shape, that is to say, a form, an outward semblance, that tells us what they are, that distinguishes them from ourselves and from each other. Unfailing in nature these shapes express the inner life, the native quality of the animal, tree, bird, fish, that they present to us; they are so characteristic, so recognizable, that we say, simply, it is "natural" it should be so. Yet the moment we peer beneath this surface of things, the moment we look through the tranquil reflection of ourselves and the clouds above us, down into the clear, fluent, unfathomable depth of nature, how startling is the silence of it, how amazing the flow of life, how absorbing the mystery. Unceasingly the essence of things is taking shape in the matter of things, and this unspeakable process we call birth and growth. Awhile the spirit and the matter fade away together, and it is this that we call decadence, death. These two happenings seem jointed and interdependent, blended into one like a bubble and its iridescence, and they seem borne along upon a slowly moving air. This air is wonderful post all understanding.
Yet to the steadfast eye of one standing upon the shore of things, looking chiefly and most lovingly upon that side on which the sun shines and that we feel joyously to be life, the heart is ever gladdened by the beauty, the exquisite spontaneity, with which life seeks and takes on its forms in an accord perfectly responsive to its needs. It seems ever as though the life and the form were absolutely one and inseparable so adequate is the sense of fulfillment.
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.
Shall we, then, daily violate this law in our art? Are we so decadent, so imbecile, so utterly weak of eyesight, that we cannot perceive this truth so simple, so very simple? Is it indeed a truth so transparent that we see through it but do not see it? Is it really then, a very marvelous thing, or is it rather so commonplace, so everyday, so near a thing to us, that we cannot perceive that the shape, form, outward expression, design or whatever we may choose, of the tall office building should in the very nature of things follow the functions of the building, and that where the function does not change, the form is not to change?
Does this not readily, clearly, and conclusively show that the lower one or two stories will take on a special character suited to the special needs, that the tiers of typical offices, having the same unchanging function, shall continue in the same unchanging form, and that as to the attic, specific and conclusive as it is in its very nature, its function shall equally be so in force, in significance, in continuity, in conclusiveness of outward expression? From this results, naturally, spontaneously, unwittingly, a three part division, not form any theory, symbol, or fancied logic.
And thus the design of the tall office building takes its place with all other architectural types made when architecture, as has happened once in many years, was a living art. Witness the Greek temple, the Gothic cathedral, the medieval fortress.
And thus, when native instinct and sensibility shall govern the exercise of our beloved art; when the known law, the respected law, shall be that form ever follows function; when our architects shall cease struggling and prattling handcuffed and vainglorious in the asylum of a foreign school; when it is truly felt, cheerfully accepted, that this law opens up the airy sunshine of green fields, and gives to us a freedom that the very beauty and sumptuousness of the outworking of the law itself as exhibited in nature will deter any sane, any sensitive man from changing into license, when it becomes evident that we are merely speaking a foreign language with a noticeable American accent, whereas each and every architect in the land might, under the benign influence of this law, express in the simples, most modes, most natural way that which it is in him to say; that he might really and would surely develop his own characteristic individuality, and that the architectural art with him would certainly become a living form of speech, a natural form of utterance, giving surcease to him and adding treasures small and great to the growing art of his land; when we know and feel that Nature is our friend, not our implacable enemy that an afternoon in the country, an hour by the sea, a full open view of one single day, through dawn, high noon, and twilight, will suggest to us so much that is rhythmical, deep, and eternal in the vast art of architecture, something so deep, so true, that all the narrow formalities, hand and fast rules, and strangling bonds of the schools cannot stifle it in us then it may be proclaimed that we are on the high road to a natural and satisfying art, an architecture that will live because it will be of the people, for the people, and by the people.
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