Philosophy: Built environment, culture and people

Ákos Gyarmathy

Dr Béla Kerékgyártó

Department for Philosophy and History of Science

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X84AJl5fC7Q

What is the relation of form and function?

• Pevsner: Functionality is not indispensable for aesthetic enjoyment. Modern art communicate high aesthetic value without functionality. (independent, standalone art and artist, leave-it-or-take-it attitude).

• Raphael and Michelangelo are conceived within architecture (mural paintings).

• Titian, Rembrandt or Velasquez are not (easel paintings).

„Very high aesthetic achievements are possible in easel-painting, but they are achievements torn out of the common

ground of life.”

Pevsner

„Realization is the merging of thought and feeling at the closest rapport of the mind with the Psyche, the surce of what a thing wants to be. It is the beginning of Form.” - Kahn

Form and design

• „The greatness of the architect depends on his powers of realization of that which is House rather than his design of a house which is a circumstantial act.”

Louis Kahn

• Form encompasses a harmony of systems, a sense of Order and that which characterizes one existence from an other. Form has no shape or dimension.

• Form is „what”. – Impersonal– Form characterizes a harmony of spaces good for a certain

activity of man.

• Design is „how”.– Personal– Circumstantial

Form, definition, function of a house

• „House is the abstract characteristic of spaces good to live in. House is the form…”

• House is a conditional representation of these spaces. This is design.

• Home is the house and the occupants.• Home becomes different with each

occupant.

„Commoditie”

How does the building function?

Function, type, institution, style, meaning

Utilitas – firmitas - venustas

• Vitruvius I. c. BC.– Architecture must provide

• Utility• Firmness• Beauty

• Henry Wotten XVII. c. AD.– Commodity– Firmness– Delight

Utility

• Arrangement of rooms and spaces so that there is no hindrance to use and so that a buiding is perfectly adjusted to its site. (Vitruvius)

• Formal the amount of usefulness that something has

• Definition, function, fitness, essence, form – ancient greek

Firmness

• The foundations are solid• The materials of the building are wisely

selected.

Beauty/venustas

• The appearance of building pleasing and in good taste.

• Proportion, symmetry• Satisfaction and enjoyment.

XXth centuryInternational Style

Walter Gropius (1883-1969)Where artists and technicians meet (1925-26)

„A thing is determined by its nature and if it is to be fashioned so as to work properly, its essenec must be investigated and fully grasped. A thing must answer its purpose in every way, that is fulfill its function in a practical sense and must thus be serviceable, relyable and cheap.”

Form - function

• Bauhaus architects thought that function was more important than form.– What is function?– What is form?

Function

• We need variations to describe different kinds of function making compound words like– Pragmatic utility– Circulatory function– Symbolic function– Psychlogical function

Functionalism• Functionalism is a term with several senses:• For functionalism in sociology, see Functionalism (sociology). • For structural-functionalism in anthropology, see structural

functionalism • For functionalism in the philosophy of mind, see Functionalism (

philosophy of mind) • For functionalism in architecture, see Functionalism (architecture). • For functionalism in linguistics, see Functional grammar • For functionalism in political science, see Functionalism in

international relations • For functionalism in psychology and cognitive science, see

Functionalism (psychology) • For Functionalism in Holocaust History, see Functionalism versus

Intentionalism

Functionalism (architecture)

• Functionalism, in architecture, is the principle that architects should design a building based on the purpose of that building.

• This statement is less self-evident than it first appears, and is a matter of confusion and controversy within the profession, particularly in regard to modern architecture.

Functionalism

• Early examples are the industrial buildings of the German architects Peter Behrens and Martin Gropius.

AEG (General Electricity Company) – High tension turbine factory - Peter Behrens (1908-1909)

Ludwig Hilberseimer wrote: 'Peter Behrens is led astray by the imperialistic power consciousness of the prewar years and restrained by classical influences, and he thinks to add a facade to his turbine hall of the AEG at Moabit; an otherwise terse structure....

And Erich Mendelsohn criticized the building; 'He pastes over the expression of tension, which the hall creates, with the rigidity of a repeatedly broken temple tympanon....

Le Corbusier, however, admired the structure as being a charged center, 'which represents the integral architectonic creations of our time—rooms with admirable moderation and cleanness, with magnificent machines, which set solemn and impressive accents, as the center of attraction."

Fagus Factory (Shoe Factory) -1911-1913

For the first time a complete facade is conceived in glassflat roof has also changed. Only in the buildings by Adolf Loos which was done one year before the Fagus Factory, have we seen the same feeling for the pure cube. Another exceedingly important quality of Gropius's building is that, thanks to the large expanses of clear glass, the usual hard separation of exterior and interior is annihilated.

—Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design

Fagus Factory (Shoe Factory)

Taut

Modern Architecture 1929• „The aim of the

architecture is the creation of the perfect and therefore most beautiful efficiency.”

Bruno Taut (1880-1938)

Where does this lead concerning our original

theory?

We have a problem

Two problems!

Building types and meanings (symbols)

As an example there are two buildings designed by Mies van der Rohe for the campus of Illinois Institue of Technology during 1949-52. One is boiler house, the other is the chapel. Yet there is nothing in either the form or the material of the chapel that tells us how its function differs from the boiler house. It may be that Mies van der Rohe was viewing the chapel as an all-purpose space and wished not to create a fixed image so that a new use could be accommodated in it later.

„We… make a practical and satisfying shape, and then fit the functions into it. Today this is the only practical way to build, because the functions of most buildings are continually changing, but economically the builing cannot change.” 1952

The all purpose space – universal spaceLudwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969

Le Corbusier (1887-1965)

• The new age needs new architecture. • „The house is a machine for living in”

Villa Savoy

1) the pilotis elevating the mass off the ground

5) Roof Garden

4) Long horizontal sliding windows3) Free Facade

2) Free/open (floor) Plan

5 points of architecture

1. the pilotis elevating the mass off the ground

2. the free plan, achieved through the separation of the load-bearing columns from the walls subdividing the space

3. the free facade, the corollary of the free plan in the vertical plane

4. the long horizontal sliding window and finally

5. the roof garden, restoring, supposedly, the area of ground covered by the house

Five points of new architecture by Le Corbusier

1) "Pilotis" or columns elevating the building body off the ground,

2) The free plan, achieved through the separation of the load-bearing columns from the walls subdividing the space,

3) The free façade, the corollary of free plan in the vertical plane,

4) The long horizontal sliding window or fenêtre en longeur,

5) The roof garden, restoring, supposedly, the area of garden used up by the house.

"Pilotis" or columns elevating the building body off the ground, The free plan, achieved through the separation of the load-bearing columns from the walls subdividing the space, The free façade, the corollary of free plan in the vertical plane, The long horizontal sliding window or fenêtre en longeur, The roof garden, restoring, supposedly, the area of garden used up by the house.

City for three million inhabitants

Louis Sullivan (1856-1924)„form follows function” (?)

Guaranty Building, Buffalo 1894 • One of the first metal-

framed commercial skyscrapers.

• Four distinct zones– Basement– Ground flour– The central section– The terminating upper

flour.

• Mass scale, identical function, repetition of the units

Circulatory function

Circulatory function

Public library, Rem Koolhaas, Seattle

• Program, function, structure, shape• „Form follows function”?

Seattle library, youtube

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6Wof8zJntE&feature=related

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnxglxAKu9o&feature=related

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqq6wRaLun4&feature=related

Psychological function

Louis Kahn

• „Science is more than data-accumulating, as Salk knew well. Similarly, architecture is more than functional utility or structural display – it is the vessel that shapes human life.”

Reconsider Form related to function and to design.

Check Kahn again

Louis Kahn

• Form encompasses a harmony of systems, a sense of Order and that which characterizes one existence from an other. Form has no shape or dimension.

• Form is „what”. – Impersonal– Form characterizes a harmony of spaces good for a certain

activity of man.

• Design is „how”.– Personal– Circumstantial

Form, definition, function of a house

• „House is the abstract characteristic of spaces good to live in. House is the form…”

• House is a conditional representation of these spaces. This is design.

• Home is the house and the occupants.• Home becomes different with each

occupant.

Mid-term testOctober 2.

• Test questions will be basically similar to the helping questions.

• The main task will be comparison of arguments and concepts in different texts.

• You cannot use the text this time.• The test is a 45 minutes test. Do not be late. • Missing the test will result in failing the test.