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 The Form-Function Relationship in Architecture and Nature:
Organic and Inorganic Functionalism
by David J. Adams

I n this essay I hope to show how the new direction in

architectural design introduced in the early twentieth
century by Austrian designer, philosopher, author, and
The interaction between architecture and nature is a long
and varied one, extending from the earliest cave dwellings
and primitive huts made entirely out of natural materials
anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner was in fact much more (even including live saplings) to the towering skyscrapers
than another historical style of architecture. Rather it was of our own century, composed of manufactured grids of
always intended as a new method and approach to design, steel, glass, and concrete. I do not propose to trace here
a new understanding of architectural form, and a new the history of this architecture-nature relationship, but
set of expressive principles – an overall approach I call rather to reflect on certain aspects of the more recent leg
“organic functionalism.” Nor was Steiner’s architectural of this long interaction.
thinking a completely isolated phenomenon in early
modern design work, as I will indicate by describing I will be concerned not so much with the external
work by some other organic functionalists. It could be connection of a building to its site, landscape design,
said that Steiner’s architectural ideas and work clarified, historical context, or neighboring buildings, nor with
concentrated, and even lifted to greater consciousness contemporary approaches to “sustainable design,”
already developing trends of his time – but always within but with the possible relationships between formative
the context of his own “spiritual-scientific” research and principles of the natural world and of architectural design
anthroposophical worldview. and form. In what follows I will examine some of the
influences that have traveled from the former to the latter
Within our present-day, early-twenty-first-century sphere during the rise of modern architecture.
pluralist or postmodern era of architectural design, no
existing approach yet radiates the conviction, confidence, My intention will be to demonstrate how the sometimes-
and achievement of the so-called “functionalist” or noted contrast between early twentieth-century “organic”
International Style of modernist architecture, which (or “expressionist”) design and the International Style
flourished from the 1920s to the 1950s and beyond. that, in a sense, superseded it, can be better understood
The famous aphorism of Louis Sullivan, “form follows as a distinction between two relatively independent
function,” has often been taken as a motto for the approaches to modern functionalism, both originating in
entire modernist movement in architecture and design. the effort to understand the form-function relationship
However, a closer examination of “functionalism” within and interpret it architecturally. I will propose that the
the development of modern architecture reveals a variety critically neglected organic functionalist stream offers us
of theoretical and practical approaches to understanding a more promising way out of the relativism of today’s
the relationship between form and function. It also pluralist and often non-functionalist architectural
reveals a larger context (“organic functionalism”) impasse.
for the architectural work of Rudolf Steiner and his
anthroposophical followers and successors. Actually, the concern for the relationship between form
and function in artistic design may be traced back as far as
The roots of this relationship are to be found in parallels the ancient Greeks. Aristotle distinguished between Fine
between architecture and the natural world. I would like Art, which served only itself, and Practical Art, which
1
to suggest that a re-examination of some of the sources served an end other than itself. Xenophon recorded the
of modernist architectural design and of the relationship following dialogue between Socrates and Arislippus in
between nature and the built environment can indicate his Memorabilia of Socrates:
places where the modernist movement may in fact have
diverged from its originating impulses and also reveal
1
As discussed along with the Greek idea of an inbuilt purpose
principles and examples useful for developing a more (telos) and Aristotle’s idea of a “functional unity of all the
parts” in Colin St. John Wilson, The Other Tradition of Modern
authentic architectural expression today.
Architecture: The Uncompleted Project (London: Academy
Editions, 1995), pp. 40-41, 72.
 Socrates: Do you not understand that things are Oriental) and the purely practical endeavors of engineers
beautiful – and good – in accordance with the same and industrial designers concerned with developing an
criteria . . . namely, in respect of those things for applied, functional language for the useful structures of an
which they are useful? increasingly inventive technology. Hermann Muthesius’s
Arislippus: Is a dung basket beautiful then? 1902 book Style-Architecture and Building-Art was one
Socrates: Of course – and a shield made of gold is of the first clear expositions of this difference, employing
ugly if the one is well made for its special work and the opposed terms “architecture” (“purposeless” art) vs.
3
other badly. “building” (utilitarian construction).
Arislippus: Do you mean that the same things are
both beautiful and ugly? A few romantic artists also took a different, more positive
Socrates: Of course – and both good and bad. For attitude toward utility. For example, in a painting such
what is good for hunger is often bad for fever, and as Coalbrookdale by Night (1801) by Philip James de
what is good for fever bad for hunger … For all things Loutherborg, the dramatic spectacle of the fiery smelting
are good and beautiful in relation to those purposes for furnace of early British iron foundries was invested with
which they are well adapted, bad and ugly in relation qualities of wonder and admiration for the achievements
2
to those for which they are ill adapted. of technology (Figure 1). These polar attitudes toward

To Socrates’ description of “fitness for use” (typically

called convenience) the first-century B.C. Roman architect
Vitruvius added two further qualities necessary for good
buildings: firmness (or durability) and beauty (or delight).
Through the Renaissance and even up to the nineteenth
century, Vitruvius’s Ten Books on Architecture remained
perhaps the most influential architectural treatise of the
Western world. All later architecture based on the classical
“orders” owed some debt to Vitruvius.

The Separation of Art and Utility

The beginnings of the modern movement in architectural Figure 1. Philip James de Loutherbourg, Coalbrookdale by Night
1801 oil on canvas, National Museum of Science and Industry,
design may be traced to the eighteenth century, when the
London. Photo from Wikimedia Commons: The Yorck Project: 10.000
Industrial Revolution made possible the mass production Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202.
of useful goods formerly crafted by hand. At that time Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. PD-1996.
the new production technology led to a deterioration in
the quality of design and manufacture. The Romantic mechanization can also be discerned on a more theoretical
Movement in the arts can be read in part as a negative level in the varying interpretations given to the form-
reaction to this increasing industrialization and to the (often function relationship by architects of the nineteenth and
profit-driven) design principle of mere utility, which John twentieth centuries in their search for a new and “modern”
Keats condemned in these lines: “Oh sweet fancy! let her style of architecture. Many of these interpretations have
loose / Everything is spoilt by use.” Or, a bit later, Gerald been helpfully chronicled by Peter Collins in his Changing
Manley Hopkins in these: “And all is seared with trade; Ideals in Modern Architecture 1750-1950, to which my
4
bleared, smeared with toil; / And wears man’s smudge and entire discussion is much indebted. Early on, the English
shares man’s smell.” The ideal soon arose of “art for art’s poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge defined these two different
sake” (rather than for some practical, utilitarian purpose), 3
Hermann Muthesius, Style-Architecture and Building-Art (Los
and the fissure between these two conceptions continued Angeles: Getty Center Publications, 1994).
throughout the nineteenth century. In architecture the further 4
Peter Collins, Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture: 1750-
development of this attitude took the form of a division 1950 (London: Faber and Faber, 1965). I should also mention the
between the aesthetic activities of architects and theorists invaluable coverage of nineteenth-century theoretical treatments
centered on revivals of preindustrial crafts and styles of architectural design in an organic vein chronicled by Caroline
van Eck in Organicism in nineteenth-century architecture: An
(Gothic, Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Renaissance, Baroque,
inquiry into its theoretical and philosophical background (Am-
2
Xenophon, Memorabilia of Socrates, III: 8: 5-7; my italics. 2 sterdam: Architectura & Natura Press, 1994).
types of form-making as “mechanic” and “organic”: Darwin. Lamarck contended that change in environment
modifies the very form of organisms and that heredity
The form is Mechanic when on any given material transmits the change. Darwin effectively responded that
we impress a predetermined form, not necessarily evolution comes about through random selection among
arising out of the properties of the material, as when existing forms, in which non-functional forms do not
to a mass of wet clay we give whatever shape we wish survive. Thus it could be said that Darwin’s “function
it to retain when hardened. The Organic form, on the follows form” view won out, but today both Darwin and
other hand, is innate; it shapes as it develops itself Lamarck are generally considered “functionalists” (rather
from within, and the fullness of its development is than “structuralists’), since both regarded adaptation as the
one and the same with the perfection of its outward cause of evolutionary change, differing only in their views
5 6
form. Such is the life, such is the form. on how that change was transmitted.

The Roots of Organic Functionalism In the search for a new style of architecture, the concepts
in the biological form-function dialogue (as well as other
The origins of one architectural approach to the form- “organic” concepts borrowed from biology) were to prove
function relationship, a direction I will call “organic quite fruitful, although the architects for the most part did
functionalism,” can be traced back to the developing not line up into neatly opposed camps. Rather, the very idea
concept of ”the organic” within the field of biology at the of a close, holistic relationship between form and function
beginning of the nineteenth century. The term organic had in nature seems to have served as a model that generally
been perhaps first employed in 1800 in Xavier Bichat’s stimulated architectural imagination in diverse ways. A
Physiological Researches on Life and Death as referring direct architectural restatement of the early nineteenth-
only to stationary, vegetative life and functions, and not century morphological debates can even be found in
to “animal” functions. About the same time Lamarck a comment by turn-of-the-century Viennese architect
coined the term biology for the science of life, and Goethe Adolf Loos: “I am convinced that it is use that determines
invented the word morphology for the still broader science the forms of our living and the forms of objects; others
of living form. During this period the term “function,” maintain that a new form can influence the forms of living
7
which Webster’s Dictionary now describes as “the normal (the way in which we sit, dwell, eat, etc.).”
or characteristic action of anything,” was applied only to
the organic realm. Buildings generally inspired by analogies between design
in nature and design in architecture I will term “organic
Within the new science of morphology, which was pursued architecture,” which includes the organic aspects of Art
through the study of comparative anatomy, a quarrel arose Nouveau/Jugendstil and Expressionism. This organic
and raged on over the following half-century: Does “movement” flourished most widely in the late nineteenth
form follow function, or does function follow form? In a and early twentieth centuries in Europe, although a number
famous debate of 1830 in Paris the school defending the of later examples may be found as well. Within this
former position was led by biologist Georges Cuvier, who larger category the more specific approach I call “organic
contended that every modification of a function involved functionalism“ arose. Composed of a diverse and scattered
the modification of an organ’s form as well. The opposing set of largely individualistic designers, its range of possible
“function follows form” faction was led by the younger characteristics may be summarized as follows:
Étienne Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire (with whom the eighty- • the close harmony between form and function,
two-year-old Goethe also sided). 6
See Stephen Jay Gould’s discussion of this debate and his
use of terminology in “Archetype and Adaption,” Natural His-
The relation of form and function later became a crucial tory 95, 10 (October 1986): 16-27. The opposing “structural-
ist” viewpoint argued that an initial archetypal form regulated
point in the evolutionary theories based on Lamarck and
all later modifications or “adaptations.” The terms of this debate
and its likely influence on architecture and architectural theory
5
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Shakespearean Criticism, ed. T. M have been discussed more thoroughly in Caroline van Eck, Org-
Raysor (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, anicism in nineteenth-century architecture, especially pp. 25 and
1930), I, p. 324. A similar distinction is expressed in Coleridge’s 214-255.
“Theory of Life” in The Selected Poetry and Prose of Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, ed. Donald A. Stauffer (New York: Random 7
Quoted in Luigi DiVito and Antoinetta Groia, “Il cuoio. Sto-
House, 1951), p. 573n9. ria technologie design,” L’architettura 30, 11 (November 1984):
3 846 (English resume).
 whereby a building’s forms exemplify its functions credited with the first definite statement of an architectural
and essential identity, with an expanded conception of theory based on an analogy between the form-function
“function” beyond mere physical utility; relationship in living nature and in architecture, the
• the organism-like, mutually reciprocal relationship roots of his ideas may be traced back primarily to early
between whole and part (“holism”), also between form nineteenth century Germany through the strong presence
and function; of German immigrant architects in Chicago. The earliest
• the imitation in the design process and its results of German writer who described the characteristics and laws
principles or laws operative within the forms of living of development of the organic world in connection with
nature; architecture appears to have been Goethe. Already in his
• the dynamic principle of metamorphosis of form as 1772 essay on Strasbourg Cathedral he described the Gothic
one of the most important of these laws; and cathedral as arising by necessity, like a growing tree, with
• a certain care for the varied relationship of a building a consistently harmonious relationship between parts and
to its specific surroundings. whole – qualities that he also ascribed to classical Greek
architecture. Although he may have been influenced in
The characteristics of this approach to building could some of these ideas by Winckelmann or even Renaissance
be concisely (but perhaps misleadingly, because writers, Goethe’s comprehensive and profound vision of
oversimplified) summarized as the inspiration and the organic world appears to me to be one of the primary
generation of form purely out of the particular way of life sources for similar statements by many nineteenth-century
that called it into being (its “function”). German architects and philosophical authors. Among
these writers were F. W. J. Schelling, Wilhelm Schlegel,
This interest in an analogy between the form-function Heinrich Hübsch, Johann Heinrich Wolff, Karl Friedrich
relationship in organic form and in artistic design was Schinkel, Carl Gottlieb Wilhelm Bötticher, Robert Vischer,
foreshadowed in France by a group of architects in the Heinrich Wölfflin, Adolf Hildebrand, August Schmarsow,
1830s called the Romantic Pensionnaires8 and later by the Rudolf Redtenbacher, and Gottfried Semper (whom Steiner
poet/critic Baudelaire, who in 1855 urged art critics to study mentions in several places in these lectures).
the “inevitable relationship between form and function” in
9
nature. Earlier the American sculptor Horatio Greenough As Georg Germann has pointed out, Carl Schnaase’s
presciently argued for the “organic” design principles of discussion of the organic qualities of Gothic design in the
“strict adaption of forms to functions,” “elimination of all 1840s has left us a useful definition of the term “organism,”
that is irrelevant,” “the external expression of the inward as then understood:
functions of the building,” and “the consistency and
10
harmony of the parts juxtaposed.” Both may have been It is a whole, but not one that has been formed by the
echoing still earlier German authors. application of external pressure and external rules. On
the contrary, it is a whole that has been engendered by
Although American architect Louis Sullivan is typically an integrated inner force, one in which the different
parts serve different purposes, but always in such a
8
As noted in van Eck, Organicism in nineteenth-century archi- way that they are permeated by the spiritual life of
tecture, p. 18.
the whole and enter into reciprocal relations with
9
As noted in Collins, Changing Ideals, p. 155. There were some
repetitions of this sentiment within French thought of the lat- other parts, constituting both a means and a purpose.
er nineteenth century, probably also consequences of the 1830 In a word, a free purposiveness, a self-purposiveness
11
morphological debate, as in this statement of Léonce Reynard: [Selbstzweck].”
“In everything that has resulted from God’s hand there exists an
intimate relationship between form and function; the exterior is The other chief source of many of these organic concepts
the result of the internal composition. . . . similarly, architecture
was the Early Renaissance writing of Leon Battista
demands that its forms be the result, the product of its destina-
tion . . . admitting nothing that is not founded on real necessity Alberti, particularly his De re aedificatoria (“On the Art
. . . .” (Paris: Librairie Dalmont et Dunod, 1860), as translated 11
Carl Schnaase, “Über das Organische in der Baukunst,” Kunst-
in Demetri Porphyrios, Sources of Modern Eclecticism: Alvar blatt 25 (1844), cited in Georg Germann, Gothic Revival in Eu-
Aalto (London: Academy Editions, 1978), p. 25. rope and Britain: Sources, Influences and Ideas (London: Lund
10
Horatio Greenough, Form and Function: Remarks on Art, De- Humphries with the Architectural Association, 1972), p. 96; as
sign, and Architecture (Berkeley, California: University of Cali- translated by Peter Blundell Jones in Hugo Häring: The Or-
fornia Press, 1947): especially pp. 21, 58, and 62. ganic versus the Geometric (Stuttgart and London: Edition Axel
4 Menges, 1999), pp. 83-83.
of Building”) written between 1443 and 1452, and some
of his successors. These organic concepts were originally
derived from concepts in rhetorical and poetical theories
extending back to ancient classical sources. Caroline
van Eck has effectively demonstrated this derivation
in great detail in her extensive study, Organicism in
nineteenth-century architecture. There van Eck explains
how in the nineteenth century “organicism” (defined as
“the metaphorical application to architecture of concepts
12
originally reserved for living nature” ) was not a theoretical
foundation for any one particular style of architecture, but
was used as a “strategy of invention and justification” for
a whole range of historically revivalist styles. “Whereas
organicism functioned in the preceding centuries as a Figure 2. Rudolf Steiner, First Goetheanum 1913-1922 Dornach,
help and justification for stylistic choice but did not in Switzerland, view from northwest.
itself constitute a particular style of building, she writes, the early “skyscraper.” Some of their names were Frederick
“‘organic architecture’ in the twentieth century became Baumann, Edward Baumann, August Bauer, Dankmar
the name of particular styles of building, such as those of Adler, Nathan Clifford Ricker, Richard Schmidt, and John
15
Frank Lloyd Wright, Alvar Aalto or Rudolf Steiner.”13 Edelman. They also transmitted German theoretical

As I will try to indicate in contrast to van Eck, if one

understands by “style” not a fixed technique or appearance,
but rather a manner or method of designing, then organic
functionalism can, in fact, be seen to a certain extent as
carrying forward or being inspired by the nineteenth-
century discussions of metaphorically related principles
and methods of designing in nature and in architecture.
The buildings of Steiner, Hugo Häring, and Hans Scharoun
– and to a more limited extent, even Frank Lloyd Wright
– are certainly not all designed in a single consistent
stylistic appearance. Compare, for example, Steiner’s
first Goetheanum (Figure 2), second Goetheanum, and
Transformer House (Figure 3), and you will think you are
looking at three different “styles” in the traditional sense.14

Beginning in the early 1850s many German-educated

Figure 3. Rudolf Steiner, Transformer House (left) 1921 and Second
emigrant architects began arriving in Chicago. Although
Goetheanum (right, background) 1924-28, Dornach, Switzerland,
most of these German architects designed in the typical view from southwest. Photo by author.
historical revival styles (especially Romanesque and the
Renaissance-derived Rundbogenstil), it was primarily conceptions of ideal organic qualities in architecture. For
German-educated architects who created the foundation in example, in the late 1870s Ricker, the first chairman of
engineering for the achievement of the tall office building, the department of architecture at the University of Illinois
in Chicago, wrote of the organic “principle” having been
12
van Eck, Organicism in nineteenth-century architecture, p. 12. demonstrated in past architectural masterpieces, each of
13
van Eck, Organicism in nineteenth-century architecture, p.
which seemed to “possess an organic life, so justly are its
258.
14
It should be admitted that Steiner occasionally muddied these different elements proportioned to each other, and so nobly
waters a bit by speaking of trying to create a new architectural
style, using the style-obsessed language of his time. One inter- 15
The German presence in Chicago’s developing architectural
esting more recent attempt to develop in greater detail a method community has been helpfully chronicled by Roula Geraniotis
of architectural designing derived from Steiner’s approach is in her doctoral dissertation, German Architects in Nineteenth-
Christopher Day’s Consensus Design: Socially Inclusive Proc- Century Chicago (University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign,
ess (Oxford: Architectural Press, 2003). 5 1985).
 16 18
does the entire building fulfil its destined purpose.” The adhered to.” As the architect Rex Raab once pointed out
connection of Ricker’s ideas to the form-function analogy to me, two chapters later Sullivan elaborated further on the
in biology is even more clearly spelled out in the following origins of this design conception within the organic world:
translation he made from an 1893 German architectural
textbook: “For the work of man to completely fulfill its And amid the immense number and variety of living
purpose, like the products of nature, each part must fulfill forms, he noted that invariably the form expressed
the function assigned to it and take the appropriate form. the function, as, for instance, the oak tree expresses
The entire structure must be a truthful expression of the the function oak, the pine tree the function pine, and
17
idea that called it into existence.” so on through the amazing series. And, inquiring
more deeply, he discovered that in truth it was not
The Organic Functionalists simply a matter of form expressing function, but
the vital idea was this: That the function created or
This German influence in Chicago reached a kind of organized its form. … The application of the idea to
culmination in Adler and Sullivan’s Auditorium of 1886- the Architectural art was manifest enough, namely,
1889. Almost all of the technical, structural, and design that the function of a building must predetermine and
19
features of the Auditorium originated from German organize its form.
sources, especially from German theater design. Louis
Sullivan, who added a more dramatic expression and his What, we may ask in attempting to extend Sullivan’s
organic style of decoration to the interior of the Auditorium, reasoning, is the function “oak” or “pine”? It exists most
also acknowledged several of these transplanted German essentially not in space but in time. Like all plants, the
architects in Chicago as his teachers. In Sullivan’s visible form of the function oak is one that changes through
architectural theory, as Collins has pointed out, the the seasons: from bare tree in winter to budding tree to
functionalism necessary for life in nature was considered leafing tree to acorn-filled tree to new shoot sprouting
necessary for beauty in architectural design. In addition from an acorn and so on. Sullivan reflected this botanical
to the German sources, Sullivan had derived this analogy metamorphosis of form in his method for generating his
from his own nature studies and from contemplation of unique style of architectural ornament. This was pictorially
Herbert Spencer’s biological writings, which discussed described only late in his career in the publication he
the nineteenth-century form-function debates. Sullivan’s finished in 1923, A System of Architectural Ornament
20
conceptions, in turn, were passed on to his influential pupil According with the Philosophy of Man’s Powers. Therein
Frank Lloyd Wright, the most visible twentieth-century several sequences illustrate the production of an intricate,
advocate of “organic architecture.” stylized design through a progressive transformation of a

In his Autobiography of an Idea Sullivan first enunciated

the concept “form follows function” as the credo of a
new architecture, and it is worth recalling his original
formulation, where he spoke of himself, the architect, in the
third person and of “a formula he had evolved, through long
contemplation of living things, namely that form follows
function, which would mean, in practice, that architecture
might again become a living art, if this formula were but
16
“Architectural Grammar,” Building 5 (November 1886), p.
255.
17
“Architectural Composition,” mimeograph of typewritten
translation from Heinrich Wagner, Josef Bühlmann, and August Figure 4. Louis Sullivan, Plate 2, detail, from A System of
Thiersch, Die architektonische Composition, vol. 1 of Entwer- Architectural Ornament According with the Philosophy of Man’s
fen, Anlage und Einrichtung der Gebaude, Part 4 of Handbuch Power (New York: AIA Press, 1924; reprint 1934).
der Architektur, 2nd ed., (Darmstadt: Arnold Bergsträsser, 1893),
in Ricker Library of the University of Illinois in Urbana-Cham- 18
Louis Sullivan, The Autobiography of an Idea (New York: Do-
paign. Ricker’s role has been rediscovered through the work of ver, 1956 [1924]), p. 258.
Roula Geraniotis. See also her “The University of Illinois and 19
Ibid., p. 290.
German Architectural Education,” Journal of Architectural Edu- 20
Louis Sullivan, A System of Architectural Ornament According
cation 38, 4 (Summer 1985): 15-21. 6 with a Philosopy of Man’s Powers (New York: AIA Press, 1924).
simple geometric or organic form abstracted from nature structure, Sullivan occasionally has been classified as an
(Figure 4). architect belonging to the turn-of-the-century Art Nouveau
movement. But the organic Art Nouveau (and Jugendstil)
In 1901 Sullivan presented the organic principle I call artists were, recalling the principles of Ruskin, more
“holism” and its relationship to the form-function harmony: concerned with sinuously stylizing or simply copying the
external, sense-perceptible forms and lines of the natural
… if a building is properly designed, one should be world. Sullivan made more penetrating efforts to discover
able with a little attention, to read through that building and then create according to the underlying principles or
to the reason for that building … Consequently each laws by which the visible forms of nature come about.
part must so clearly express its function that the That Sullivan felt he had grasped an essential and universal
function can be read through the part … if the work verity is indicated in his article of 1901, “Function and
is to be organic the function of the part must have the Form”: “The interrelation of function and form. It has
same quality as the function of the whole; … must no beginning, no ending. It is immeasurably small,
partake of its identity. For a great work, for us, must immeasurably vast; inscrutably mobile, infinitely serene;
22
be an organism – that is, possessed of … an individual intimately complex yet simple.”
life that functionates in all its parts; and which finds
its variations in expression in the variations of its
main function, and in the consequent, continuous,
systematic variations in form, as the organic
21
complexity of expression unfolds; . . .

Because of his organically derived ornament (Figure

5) and analogies between skyscraper form and plant

Figure 6. Bruno Taut, Glass Pavilion, Werkbund exhibition, Co-

logne, May 1914.

Some of the German Expressionist architects also designed

buildings by analogy with organic form. Instances of
an imitative approach to nature similar in some ways to
Jugendstil designs can be found in the work of Bruno Taut
and other members of the “Crystal Chain” circle, who based
their designs on the forms of crystals or other, less easily
23
defined organic forms (Figure 6). However, two other
architects, still usually also classified as Expressionists,
delved more deeply into the architectural theory and
Figure 5. Louis Sullivan, Elevator Bank, ornament detail, practice of the form-function relationship.
from First Floor, Chicago Stock Exchange Building 1893-94 22
Ibid., p. 43.
(demolished 1972) cast iron, Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by 23
See, for example, The Crystal Chain Letters: Architectural
author.
Fantasies by Bruno Taut and His Circle, ed. and trans., Iain Boyd
21
Louis Sullivan Kindergarten Chats and Other Writings (New Whyte (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985); or Wolfgang Pehnt, Ex-
York: Wittenborn Art Books, 1947), pp. 46-47, 160. The original pressionist Architecture, trans. J. A. Underwood and Edith Küst-
1901 Kindergarten Chats was revised by Sullivan in 1918. 7 ner (New York: Praeger, 1973), especially pp. 92-98.
Perhaps the most chimney also suggesting the rising and branching of the
comprehensive of the smoke (Figure 7). Door handles closely fit the irregular
organic functionalists form of the grasping human hand and clearly indicate
was the previously “push” or “pull” by their very shape (Figure 8). Door
noted Austrian-born jambs arch asymmetrically inward to designate their
architect, spiritual dynamic role within the architectonic forces of load and
philosopher, and support (as opposed to a traditional static balance of
educator Rudolf parallel vertical supports). Steiner often used the image
Steiner (1861- of the close-fitting relationship between a nutshell and its
1925), the founder kernel to describe the ideal union of form and function that
of anthroposophy, he sought (or, as in Lecture Five of the present volume,
whose work is the relationship between a cake mold and a cake, the
partially represented Gugelhupf). He designed in detail the entire interior and
in this volume. An exterior environments of his major buildings, endeavoring
untrained architect to fit each part of the structure into its place in an organic
who collaborated whole and also to relate the entire building to its natural
with others, he aimed surroundings.
to demonstrate in his
seventeen buildings,
Figure 7. Rudolf Steiner, Boiler House
particularly in his
1914-15 Dornach. Photo by author.
two Goetheanum
buildings in Dornach,
Switzerland, ways to create a
new, organic, and functional
architectural style by
applying essential formative
principles of the natural
24
world to building designs.
He created spaces and
forms that not only fulfilled
but also visibly declared
their functions, including
their relationship to their Figure 9. Rudolf Steiner, Interior Scale Model of First Goethea-
human users. A boiler house Figure 8. Rex Raab, Door Han- num, auditorium detail showing metamorphosing carved wood
ornament sequences, July 1913, Goetheanum Archive, Dornach,
features branching flame dles for Foundation Stone Hall,
Photo by author.
forms for window trim and 1960s, interior of Second Goethe-
for a dramatically sculptural anum, Dornach. Photo by author. Like Sullivan, but in a more conscious and thorough-
24
For more information on Steiner’s architecture in English, see going way, Steiner applied the organic growth principle of
especially Christian Thal-Jantzen, ed., Architecture as a Synthe- metamorphosis of form to the non-representational forms
sis of the Arts: Lectures by Rudolf Steiner, trans. Johanna Col- of the Goetheanum’s ornamentation and ground plan
lis, Dorothy Osmond, Rex Raab, and Jean Schmid-Bailey (Lon- (Figure 9). As the editor of an edition of Goethe’s scientific
don: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999); Frederick Amrine’s four-part
works during the last two decades of the nineteenth century,
“Bibliographic Essay” in a series of volumes titled The First
Goetheanum to be published by SteinerBooks in 2016 and 2017; Steiner acknowledged a connection between his use of this
Hagen Biesantz, et al., The Goetheanum: Rudolf Steiner’s Ar- principle and the original discovery and study of biological
chitectural Impulse (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1979); Rex metamorphosis conducted by Goethe (especially as the key
25
Raab, et al., Eloquent Concrete (London: Rudolf Steiner Press); to understanding morphological development in plants).
Wolfgang Pehnt, Rudolf Steiner, Gotheanum, Dornach (Berlin: This was also a recognition of the indispensable dimension
Ernst & Sohn, 1991); and David Adams, “Rudolf Steiner’s First
Goetheanum as an Illustration of Organic Functionalism,” Jour- 25
See Goethe’s “The Metamorphosis of Plants“ (1798) in Jo-
nal of the Society of Architectural Historians 51,2 (June 1992): hann Wolfgang von Goethe, Scientific Studies, trans. Douglas
182-204. Miller (New York: Suhrkamp, 1988), pp. 76-97. Steiner also
8 used musical analogies to refer to this aspect of his designs.
of time, of rhythmic growth and maintenance processes the whole, must make evident in its own form that it is
26
within living organisms. In attempting to enliven the indispensable. The very smallest appendage in the different
forms of his buildings by designing according to dynamic parts of the building must be as manifestly indispensable
processes active in the organic world, Steiner aimed to as the lobe of the ear or an arm or a head is to the human
30
attune his edifices to living human psychology, to fashion organism.”
in his structures a “semblance of consciousness,” as he put
it, that would be responsive and sympathetic to what might Partly by analogy with the earth’s covering of plant life,
arise within human beings’ own consciousness as they used Steiner also developed the principle of the “living wall” (or
27
and experienced his buildings. In his orientation toward “transparent wall”), a medium-sensitive enlivening of wall
expressing the relationship of his buildings to their human surfaces through sculptural treatment, engraved colored
users and purposes, it could be said that Steiner expanded glass, layered transparent wall painting, or other means. His
organic functionalism to a “psychological functionalism,” effort was to engage the viewer so that the outer, material
28
or even a “spiritual functionalism.” He elaborated on these aspect of the wall would experientially “disappear” and
principles in more than seventy lectures on architecture. be replaced by the viewer’s absorption within an artistic
experience of the dynamically formal, psychological, and
A building was fully functional only when all these spiritual qualities expressed. His buildings often have a
aspects were addressed by the built structure and its non-geometrical, faceted, or sculptured look because he
interior, which was possible only when the building was strove for functional reasons to shape them in the same
developed organically from its internal functional program way he perceived that the formative forces of life shape
and intended user activities. Asked how to tap the source living organisms, working from the periphery inward.
of architectural imagination, Steiner replied simply, “You
29
ask yourself what happens.” In Steiner’s individualizing A second like-minded “Expressionist” working entirely
functionalism, every design has its own functionally separately from Steiner, Hugo Häring (1882-1958) not
appropriate form or structural gesture, “a structure that only developed his building designs in tune with local
expresses its innermost nature.” Such structures aspire to materials, design traditions, and surrounding context, but
an essential, reciprocal interrelation of parts and whole he also attempted with his “organ-like“ architecture to
similar to that existing in natural organisms. ”Every form create buildings that were “organs” to the functions they
in this organically conceived building,” he commented in served, individualized forms adapted as closely to functions
1920 on his Goetheanum, “in that it represents a part of as the organs of the human body. Such forms, based on the
designer’s apprehension of a building’s essential purpose
26
As this has been clearly demonstrated since the 1930s within
and being, would bring about a “second nature” (as Goethe
chronobiology, the scientific study of biorhythms as an essential
characteristic of life. Earlier, Steiner spoke of a “time organ- originally expressed it) equivalent to the existing natural
ism” (Man and the World of Stars, trans. D. S Osmond [New world.
York: Anthroposophic Press, 1963], p. 147ff) and often referred
to this rhythmic feature: “The whole of life is rhythmical. The Both architect and theorist, Häring was committed to
discerning of nature’s rhythms – that will be true natural sci- patiently discovering the forms of a building from within
ence.” (Three Streams in the Evolution of Mankind, trans. C.D.
its own function and identity rather than imposing anything
[London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1965 (1918)], p. 100.)
27
Rudolf Steiner, The Architectural Conception of the Goethea- from outside, whether elements of personal expression,
num (London: Rudolf Steiner Publishing Company, 1938 traditional styles, or supposedly objective geometric
[1921]), pp. 10 and 19. This is a lecture given June 29, 1921 in forms. He insisted on following “the path of nature” where
Bern. A new translation of this lecture is forthcoming as CW 290; “the ordering principles on which organisms are formed
The First Goetheanum: Towards a New Theory of Architecture, 31
are given by the life-tasks of the organs.” In 1925 Häring
introduction John Kettle, translation and commentary Frederick
described his design approach as follows: “We want to
Amrine (Great Barrington, Massachusetts: SteinerBooks, 2016).
28
For a more thorough elaboration of these points, see Adams, examine things and allow them to discover their own
30
“Rudolf Steiner’s First Goetheanum as an Illustration of Organic Rudolf Steiner, Architektur, Plastik, und Malerei des Ersten
Functionalism.” Goetheanum (Dornach: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1972 [1920]), p.
29
A question asked by his young architectural assistant Her- 19 (my translation). A similar statement is found in lecture 5 of
mann Ranzenberger, as reported in Rex Raab, “Rudolf Steiner as this volume.
Architect, “Architectural Association Quarterly, 12 (1980): 54. 31
Hugo Häring, “Neues Bauen” (1947) in Jürgen Joedicke and
For more on Ranzenberger, see Hella Krause-Zimmer, Hermann Heinrich Lauterbach, Hugo Häring. Schriften, Entwurfe, Bauten
Ranzenberger: Ein Leben für den Goetheanum-Bauimpuls (Dor- (Stuttgart: Karl Krämer Verlag, 1965), p. 58, as quoted and trans-
nach: Verlag am Goetheanum, 1995). 9 lated by Peter Blundell Jones, Hugo Häring, p. 185.
images. It goes against the grain to bestow a form on them
from the outside … If we try to discover the “true organic” In an essay of 1914 published as part of the collection
form, rather than to impose an extraneous form, we act in titled In the Cause of Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright had
32
accord with nature.” Häring saw his designed building stated a concept of organic design similar to Häring’s: “By
forms (or “Gestalts”) as “organs of life-fulfillment” or organic architecture I mean an architecture that develops
“performance-forms” that were shaped as “workspaces” from within outward in harmony with the conditions of
(or “happenings-spaces” [Geschenhensräume]) that would its being as distinguished from one that is applied from
36
be in intimate union with the activities and happenings without.” Wright, of course, worked out this general
occurring within them. He recognized that “the living is a principle in many directions, developing a quite varied
changing process” running “according to the life-effecting application of an organic approach to architecture that
33
secret energies of the spiritual world,” although he never included, in addition to his mentor Sullivan’s concepts,
took Steiner’s step of portraying forms in metamorphosis. the shaping of a building’s exterior by its interior space

Häring’s friend since the late 1920s, Hans Scharoun

(1893-1972), worked out of the ideas and intentions
of Häring’s organic functionalist architectural theory
and was able to produce many more built examples
of Häring’s conceptions, including the famous Berlin
Philharmonie concert hall of 1963 (Figure 10). Scharoun,
who participated in the Expressionist Crystal Chain circle
during the 1920s, was also somewhat acquainted with
34
the architecture of Steiner. Sharoun, at least, seemed to
recognize in Steiner an architectural kindred spirit when
in 1961 he designated the second Goetheanum “the most
significant building of the first half of the century.”35
Figure 11. Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater (Kaufmann
House) 1934-37 Mill Run, Pennsylvania. Photo from Wiki-
media Commons: Somach, May 3, 2010, Creative Commons
Attribution-Share Alike 3.0\ Unported.

(i.e., by its living functions), the individuality of every

structure, plan or ornament forms based usually on stylized
minerals and plants, use of local materials, horizontality to
express kinship with the ground (especially in his ”prairie
houses”), use of human scale for all proportions, and a close
relationship of composition to site and client (Figure 11). It
should also be mentioned that Wright conceived form and
function as equal, interdependent concepts (a polar unity),
rather than viewing function as a deterministic cause of
form. Always looking to nature for guiding principles
of architecture, Wright pictured the elements of organic
Figure 10. Hans Scharoun, Philharmonie, Berlin, completed
design as a grand and positive vision of the future of
1963. Photo from Wikimedia Commons: Taken August 16, 2005,
architecture: “The building era that Louis Sullivan ushered
by Manfred Brückeis, GNU Free Documentation License.
in is developing beyond the limitations that marked it,
32
“Approaches to Architectural Form,” Die Form (1925): 1, as aside from his splendid elemental florescence, into the
quoted in Jurgen Joedicke, “Haering at Garkau,” Architectural higher realm where as a human creative ideal throughout
Review (May 1960): 318. all culture it will make all form and function one.”
37
33
Hugo Häring, “Die Welt ist noch nicht ganz fertig” (1947) in
Joedicke and Lauterback, Hugo Häring, p. 63; translation by
and in Jones, Hugo Häring, p. 186. Directly and indirectly, the turn-of-the-century organic
34
For more on Scharoun, see Jones, Hans Scharoun. 36
In the Cause of Architecture (1914), quoted in Collins, Chang-
35
Rex Raab, Arne Klingborg and Ake Fant, Eloquent Concrete: ing Ideals, pp. 152.
How Rudolf Steiner Employed Reinforced Concrete (London: 37
”Organic Architecture” in The Natural House (New York: Ho-
Rudolf Steiner Press, 1979), pp. 161-162. 10 rizon Press, New American Library, 1954), p. 29.
design efforts in Chicago also influenced the early function model, the inorganic functionalists (or they could
development of modern architecture in Europe. For also be termed “mechanistic functionalists,” recalling
example, stained glass windows either designed or Coleridge’s distinction quoted earlier) looked to inorganic,
inspired by Sullivan were exhibited by the Chicago firm manufactured nature, as expressed in modern engineering
of Healy and Millet at the Paris Exposition of 1889, where design, mass production techniques, and geometric solids.
they became a significant inspiration for the Art Nouveau
architecture and decoration of Victor Horta and others Primarily associated with the architecture of the
38
(Figure 12). Wright’s early work, especially as published International School and related design approaches,
in the 1910 Wasmuth edition in Berlin, was an important inorganic functionalism’s predilection for simple
influence on the developing European modernism of the geometric forms (or more complex compositions of such
39
Bauhaus, De Stijl, and the International Style. basic forms) indicate that both organic and inorganic
approaches may have had their origins in attempts to reach
behind the outer surface of nature and create according to
an understanding of her own fundamental principles and
underlying elementary forms. In addition to admiration for
the achievements of engineering and machine design, the
theoretical roots of the International Style (and at least some
of the organic functionalists) were similar to those of early
non-representational painters such as Kandinsky, Malevich,
Mondrian, El Lissitsky, and van Doesburg – namely, to
create an abstract imitation or expression of natural laws
and principles, to discover and use an elemental, geometric
language of the universal forms thought to underlie the
natural world. Applied styles were to be eliminated in
order to return to some form of the essential. International
Style architect Mies van der Rohe’s catch-phrase “less is
more” only meant that the abstraction tried to go deeper.

Figure 12. Healy and Millet, Stained glass panels exhibited at But where the organic functionalists normally insisted on
1889 Paris Exposition, from Revue des Arts Décoratifs, vol. X, totally individualized (and thus, usually more expensive)
1889-90, p. 81.
designs intended to meet the functional, aesthetic, and
Inorganic (Mechanistic) Functionalism and the environmental requirements of a specific project and
International Style client, the International Style designers hoped to generalize
their elementary geometric forms beyond the particular,
As if akin to the opposite attitudes toward mechanization contingent, and individual in order to become the common
noted in the earlier Romantic Movement, early modern language of a new modern art and architecture. Side by
architecture revealed both organic and inorganic side with a functionalist rhetoric, an aesthetic love of
approaches to functionalism. Where the organic architects geometrical form for its own sake captured the imagination
looked to living nature as the inspiration for their form- of many of the early International Style architects, most
38
Herwin Schaefer detailed the probable influence of these win- notably Le Corbusier.
dow designs on Horta and others in “Tiffany’s Fame in Europe,”
The Art Bulletin 44 (December 1962): 309-322. The possibility of an inorganic or mechanistic approach to
39
Alvar Aalto’s individualistic “humanizing” approach to archi- the form-function relationship was perhaps first advocated
tecture overlaps organic functionalism at several points (work-
with respect to architecture by American sculptor Horatio
ing with an extended functionalism, a strong sense of the spirit
of place and “embeddedness,” a certain imitative relationship Greenough (1805-1852), who observed examples of it in
40
to nature, and opposition to both “machine symbolism” and a nineteenth-century mechanical design. Contemptuous
purely scientific, constructive approach to functionalism), but of the imitative artificiality of historically revivalist
it seems to me a different, more eclectic creative direction. See architecture and ornament (“The Monkey Styles,” he called
the telling semiotic, Foucaultian analysis of Aalto’s work in
Porphyrios, Sources of Modern Eclecticism: Alvar Aalto for an 40
Horatio Greenough, Form and Function: Remarks on Art, De-
elaborate study of Aalto’s work as an approach of Modern Ec- sign, and Architecture, ed. Harold A. Small (Berkeley: Univer-
lecticism/historicist stylistic metaphor/heterotropia. 11 sity of California Press, 1947), pp. 60-65, 116-117, 121-128.
them), Greenough urged architects to study, along with the scraping towers of steel, glass, and concrete (Figure 14).
structures of animal anatomy, the uncomplicated outlines of
ocean ships and the mechanical perfection of the American
trotting wagon. His suggestion was echoed many decades
later in 1923 in Le Corbusier’s Toward a New Architecture
(Vers une architecture), with its photographs of bridges,
ships, airplanes, and automobiles, and its famous dictum,
41
“A house is a machine for living in.”

The inorganic functionalists admired the clean lines,

clearly revealed structure, and sleek, concise forms of
modern engineering. They called for an architecture shaped
purely by functional, structural, and technical necessities,
uncluttered by applied ornament. This stripped-down,
“objective” approach resulted by the 1920s in a number
of severe, rectilinear buildings with clear-cut, virtually
unornamented doors, windows, and roof lines (Figure 13).
After World War I this highly abstracted, rationalistic style,
promoted also by economic considerations, developed
on a large scale and largely came to replace the earlier
diversity of European architectural practice. Aided by the

Figure 14. Mies van der Rohe, Lake Shore Drive Apartments
1948-51 Chicago. Photo from Wikimedia Commons: Copyright
Jeremy Atherton 2006, Creative Commons Attribution-Share
Alike 2.5 Generic.

The convenient term “International Style” is still commonly

used to denote a variety of buildings that typically have
in common a lightweight skeleton frame construction
enveloped by a bare, originally often white, planar skin;
a flat-roofed, right-angled silhouette; and reliance on
synthetic modern materials and standardized modular
parts. The emphasis is more on a common appearance
than on a common structural approach – particularly the
Figure 13. Gerrit Rietveld, Schröder House 1924 Utrecht. Photo stripped-down, homogeneous, “machine-made” surface.
from Wikimedia Commons: Basub, October 17, 2010, Creative
As Mies van der Rohe proclaimed, “Wherever technology
Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Netherlands. 42
reaches its real fulfilment, it transcends into architecture.”
exodus of major modern architects from Nazi Germany Probably more International Style buildings attempted
(particularly those associated with the Bauhaus School) to imitate the appearance of the machine than aspired
43
and by the influential New York Museum of Modern to reproduce its ideal unity of form and function. In
Art exhibition and book of 1932 on “The International the course of its development the movement seemed to
Style,” this movement became established in the United “Technology and Architecture,” a speech delivered to the Il-
42

States during the 1930s and blossomed during the years linois Institute of Technology in 1950, as quoted in Philip John-
following the Second World War under the leadership of son, Mies van der Rohe (New York: Museum of Modern Art,
1954), p. 204.
Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, Philip 43
This thought has also been voiced by Karsten Harries in
Johnson, and others. The American urban landscape was ‘Thoughts on a Non-Arbitrary Architecture” in David Seamon,
gradually usurped by smoothly wrapped, orthogonal, sky- ed., Dwelling, Seeing, and Designing: Toward a Phenomeno-
41
Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, trans. Frederick logical Ecology (Albany: State University of New York Press,
Etchells (New York: Dover, 1986 [1931]). 12 1993), p. 45.
lose much of the feeling for the form-function kinship Mies formulated the idea of “universal space,” which
that characterized its early years (and which the organic could be divided or redivided and used for any function.
tradition never overlooked in the same way). Embracing both the economic advantages and the “look”
of mass production technology, the International Style
In some quarters a so-called “absolute functionalism“ used standardized building elements within an underlying
arose, advocating, in the words of architectural historian J. structural grid that could be applied equally well in any
M. Richards, “the idea that good architecture is produced type of structure. The resulting generalized patterns of
automatically by strict attention to utility, economy, and abstract, quantitized, stereometric spatial units measured
44
other purely practical considerations.” Probably the most independently of human use actually concealed rather than
extreme polemic supporting this view was made by Bauhaus revealed the specific functions of buildings or building
architect Hannes Meyer (1889-1954), who argued that parts. As the twentieth century progressed, the functions of
“building“ (as opposed to the more aesthetic conception of a church, a gasoline station, and a shoe store became ever
“architecture”) was a purely technical, functional process, more difficult to distinguish by means of their outer forms. A
a “building science” and not generalized interior space
45
a “building art.” Led by was enclosed in a more or
reductive theoretical notions less uniform wrapper and
such as this, the more only afterward divided up
embracing, flexible, and into its functional areas.
even organic conceptions of Patterns of the external
functionalism initially held facade, such as dividing
by many of the pioneers lines and fenestration,
of modernist architecture were likewise determined
within the general independently of the
inorganic stream came to interior functions, usually
be interpreted in a narrowly according to mathematical
physical, utilitarian manner or purely aesthetic
in the hands of legions of considerations.
rank-and-file architects
Figure 15. Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, Villa Savoye 1928-31
and in the popular press, Poissy. Photos from Wikimedia Commons: Valueyou, October 7, 2008, Another difficult aspect
particularly in North GNU Free Documentation License. of machine-inspired
46
America. An industrialized conceptions of a building’s
process became an ideal compositional technique. function is that these rarely extended to the building’s
surroundings. Thus, the buildings of the International
One of the sharpest points of contact between the organic Style have tended to be isolated objects set arbitrarily
and inorganic approaches occurred in the debates between into a landscape or urban setting without connection to
Hugo Häring and Mies van der Rohe when they shared site, geographical locale and tradition, or neighboring
a studio in Berlin for several years in the mid-1920s. buildings. This separation of a building from its natural
Mies explicitly criticized both Sullivan’s “form follows site could enter into even its internal design. Consider by
function” formula and Häring’s individually determined way of example how Le Corbusier’s classical early modern
functional forms, arguing that because the function of a villas of the 1920s and 1930s sundered the elements
building in modern society is often short-lived as its use normally tying a house to its ground: the car entered under
and occupants change, so the building plan and spaces the house, whose floors were raised up on slender pilotis,
should be made as generalized and flexible as possible. one concrete layer on the other, until topped by the garden
recreated artificially on the roof (Figure 15). A largely
44
J. M Richards, Modern Architecture (Baltimore: Penguin
Books, 1962), p. 37. quantitative understanding of the design process showed
45
See Hannes Meyer, Bauen und Gesellschaft. Schriften, Briefe, little interest in incorporating the qualitative elements of a
Projekte (Dresden: 1980), e.g., p. 47. Similar views were also particular site or place.
propounded by the Swiss ABC Group, led especially by Mart
Stam and Hans Schmidt. In retrospect, such results could perhaps have been
46
As detailed in Larry L. Ligo, The Concept of Function in
predicted from theoretical limitations in the machine-
Twentieth-Century Architectural Criticism (Ann Arbor: UMI
Research Press, 1984), especially pp. 7-19. building analogy. As Collins has pointed out, the functions
13
of machines themselves may be defined with varying As has been increasingly recognized, the style of design
degrees of precision and economy. The more precise deriving from the Bauhaus and the modernist, so-called
and simple a machine’s purpose, the better form and “functionalist” movement usually revealed very little
47
function mesh for a pleasing aesthetic result. Compare, visible relationship between form and function. This style,
for example, the sleek simplicity of a missile with in fact, originated from a mixture of physically functional
the complex, ungainly appearance of a multi-purpose elements (engineered structure, often using mass production
assembly machine. Like the life that goes on within them, techniques) and aesthetic elements (abstract geometrical
buildings are normally examples of these more complex forms influenced especially by early non-representational
functional entities, although for aesthetic or theoretical painting). If one examines many International Style
reasons most International Style architects imposed on buildings in terms of their typical lack of harmony between
them an additional geometrical simplification of form. form and use, the non-functional, aesthetic, symbolic, and
It could even be said that this imposition represented futuristic or “machine-age romantic” components of the
an implicit practice of “function follows form” – or, International Style vision become ever more apparent.
in the case of so many alienating modernist buildings, Theoretically, the architectural ideal of Le Corbusier’s
“dysfunction follows form.” In other words, an abstract “machine house” reflects the modernist epoch’s seemingly
aesthetic geometrical form became the main regulating innate desire to apply mechanical analogies in almost any
49
design force, often expressing structure but revealing an field. A typical example of this trend is afforded by the
increasingly remote relationship to any specific function. science of anatomy. At least in semi-popular expositions,
The contradiction was especially clear in the theoretical the heart is portrayed as a pump, the brain as a computer,
statements of Le Corbusier. and so on. Rather than its forms expressing their functions,
these modernist geometric forms are perhaps better read
In addition, there is a logical problem in comparing a as aesthetically expressive of the hard-edged, slickly
stationary object such as a building with the machine, intellectual age of science and technology. By contrast,
whose essential purpose always involves some kind of the more limited but more truly functionalist work of the
motion in time. Some of the organic designers, such as organic functionalists has routinely been marginalized by
Sullivan and Steiner, introduced the temporal dimension being classified as “expressionist” or “irrational.”
of living nature through a metamorphosis of form, but
this could not be carried out as authentically with the Despite the International Style’s valuable exploitation of
mechanical analogy, since a “building machine” is not the benefits of mass production and economical design,
inherently designed for movement in time. However, it seems apparent at the beginning of the twenty-first
decorative stylization of mechanical movement broken century that the successful efforts of its early practitioners
into multiple-phase “still shots” was attempted in the early to throw off the empty imitation of historical styles,
twentieth-century Futurist paintings and in some Art Deco in order to create a modern architecture based only on
style architectural ornament. More importantly, mobile fundamental structural and functional principles, narrowly
ships, airplanes, and automobiles are not designed for overemphasized and also misinterpreted the principle of
precise localities or particular formal relationships to each utility. For too many modernist architects functionalism
other. All too often the buildings designed as “machines for has come to mean “least expensive,” a temptation designer
living” have shown these same isolationist qualities. By Peter Blake in his Form Follows Fiasco has satirized
contrast, the organic functionalists typically appreciated as “form follows the mortgage interest rate.” Others
the relationship of buildings to their particular surrounding apparently forgot and even denied that architecture is an
context, seeking a feeling of “embeddedness” within the art as well as science. In truth, the limits of utility merely
48
genius loci. delineate the given necessities, boundaries within which
the architect’s creative imagination must work.
47
This is perhaps the reason why Häring cited also the most an-
cient tools as examples of organic design or performance forms, Toward a User-Friendly Architecture
“shaped by nature through the hand of man,” equivalent in func-
tionalism to living creatures in nature – as well as a few modern I perceive a need both to better appreciate the relative
machines including the airplane. See Jones, Hugo Häring, p. 85
49 In The Logic of Modern Physics P. W. Bridgeman comments:
48
The term “embeddedness” in this connection has been used by “Many will discover in themselves a longing for mechanical ex-
Colin St. John Wilson in The Other Tradition of Modern Archi- planation which has all the tenacity of original sin.” Quoted in
tecture, p. 76. 14 Collins, Changing Ideals, p. 166.
 50
complexity of a building’s functions and also to condition our feeling experience of different spaces.
better understand the application of the form-function In Places of the Soul and Spirit & Place Christopher
harmony of nature to the art of architecture. Within this Day has helpfully discussed many of the physiological
re-examination, both the buildings and the theoretical and psychological effects of the qualitative factors of
writings of the neglected organic functionalists can offer environmental design, including color, texture, acoustics,
51
fruitful perspectives for a way forward. Let me conclude and lighting. A number of perceptive experiential
by simply pointing to a few areas where Rudolf Steiner analyses of our perception of architectural elements have
52
as well as other early organic functionalists established been emerging from phenomenological researchers.
pioneering principles. Rather than creating hindrances or feelings of alienation
for its dwellers, architecture should, both physically and
The notion of utility must be a very broad one when we psychologically, be “user-friendly.”
are concerned with the many-dimensional human beings
for whom most buildings are constructed. As Ovid wrote, One requirement of “user-friendliness” is a kind of
“Nothing is more useful to humans than those arts which experiential trans-parency of form to function. As Sullivan
have no utility.” This indicated, a person
poetic paradox should who experiences a
be appreciated by all building should be able
artistic architects, to “read” the function
and it is, in fact, of the building or of its
extremely rare to find various parts from their
a designer who does visible forms. Thus
not to some degree – while honoring the
meld both functional limitations of materials,
and aesthetic elements space, and budget –
within his or her the architect should
building designs. In this strive to design a form
concept of “usefulness visually expressing
to humans” can be the character of its
found an expanded particular function and
notion of functionalism its involvement with
itself, one that offers a Figure 16. Eero Saarinen, Trans-World Airlines (TWA) Terminal 1956-62 J.F. particular human users.
more complete and Kennedy International Airport, New York City. Photo by author. For example, a visitor
potentially productive should be readily able
theoretical basis for contemporary architectural design. to locate the entrance to a building solely by its appearance
and should not be mystified in determining how to operate
A total picture of the function or use of any building must the entry door. As another example, Eero Saarinen’s
emphasize its effects on its human users and their responses 1960 TWA Terminal at Kennedy Airport in New York
to it. While many architects of both the “organic” and expresses both by its forms and spaces and by the dynamic
the “inorganic” approaches to functionalism would have 50 Wilson, The Other Tradition of Modern Architecture, p. 67.
accepted this idea, they rarely applied it in a thorough 51 Christopher Day, Places of the Soul: Architecture and Envi-
and comprehensive manner. The design of a building or ronmental Design as a Healing Art (London: Aquarian Press,
interior influences its inhabitants in often subtle ways. For 1990); and Spirit & Place: Healing Our Environment, Healing
example, Richard Neutra pointed out in his 1954 Survival Environment (Oxford: Architectural Press, 2002).
52 For a few examples, see Thomas Thiis-Evensen, Archetypes
through Design that even at a purely physiological level the in Architecture (New York: Norwegian University Press, 1987);
design of a room “calls” for certain habitual movements Botond Bognar, “A Phenomenological Approach to Architec-
and body placements, which could affect such things as ture and Its Teaching in the Design Studio” in David Seamon
the posture of its users. Psychological effects of the built and Robert Mugerauer, eds., Dwelling, Place, and Environment
environment may be even stronger. Colin St. John Wilson (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1985); and Robert Mugerauer,
points to four distinct levels or aspects of our experience “Toward an Architectural Vocabulary: The Porch as a Between”
in David Seamon, ed., Dwelling, Seeing, and Designing: Toward
of space, including a spatial “body-language” and a Phenomenological Ecology (Albany: State University of New
psychological/psychoanalytic components that constantly York Press, 1993), pp. 103-128.
15
flowing relationships between them the connection of the on mere physical utility or “task” to include the various
56
building to flight and to the steady circulation of arriving life dimensions of a building’s human users. A study of
and departing passengers (Figure 16). It could even be modern functionalism by Larry Ligo presents a helpfully
said that only those who regularly use a building are fully expanded description of functionalism, distinguishing
competent to judge its value and success as a design. This between five types (or perhaps levels?) of function:
concept further implies that, if possible, the future users 1. structural articulation: the revelation in design of
of a building should play a large role in its initial design.53 a building’s structural materials, methods, and
interior areas of activity;
This “transparency” should extend to how a building is 2. physical function: control of environment and
supported structurally. A slight anxiety or lack of security accommodation of the physical aspects of a
is often detectable if one enters a building unable to grasp building’s intended purpose;
easily what prevents the building from collapsing on top of 3. psychological function: the “feelings”
one, particularly in some of the more extreme examples of stirred by the building;
modernist cantilevering. As one way to reinforce this point, 4. social function: the concretization of social
Louis Kahn (1901-1974) in his Kimbell Art Museum in Fort institutions and particular cultural values; and
Worth (1966-1973) even added an “extra” vaulted space 5. cultural/existential function: the concretization of
clearly illustrating the means of support used in the rest of universal values or subconscious structures related
57
the building – the “open” cylindrical arcade porch showing to our essential humanity.
how the rest of the building is constructed of similar but
“walled-in” porch If the qualities,
shells (Figure 17). proportions,
“When I design functional forms,
a building,” he and tectonic bal-
wrote, “I want a ance of buildings
man to be able to are sympathetic to
walk down the the human psyche,
street, see it, feel the inhabitants of
the logic behind those buildings
it, and perceive should experience
the derivation that healthy,
of its need.” “I secure feeling
hope it will have of “dwelling”
the qualities that described by
show you through Figure 17. Louis I. Kahn, Kimbell Art Museum 1966-73 Fort Worth, Texas. Photo by author. p h i l o s o p h e r
54
itself.” Martin Heidegger
58
in his classic essay, “Building Dwelling Thinking.”
Kahn described architecture as “the creating of spaces that When one authentically dwells, not only the building but
55
evoke the feeling of appropriate use.” By emphasizing the world as a whole becomes to our feeling a familiar
59
the importance of the feeling evoked by a building’s forms “inside” rather than an alien “outside.”
and spaces in connection with function, Kahn directed
our attention to the psychological impact of architecture. 56
This appears to be identical with what English Arts and Crafts
A feeling of use is “appropriate” if it is appropriate to architect William Richard Lethaby called “High Utility” in Form
in Civilisation (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1922), p. 9, as
the whole human being as user. It is important to stress,
noted by both Jones, Hugo Häring, p. 221, fn. 40; and St. John
as Steiner emphasized, that the concept of function Wilson, The Other Tradition of Modern Architecture, p. 63.
usually employed by the organic functionalists expands 57
Ligo, Concept of Function, especially p. 5.
53
Christopher Day’s book, Consensus Design, could again be 58
Martin Heidegger, “Building Dwelling Thinking” in Poetry,
mentioned in this context (see footnote 14). Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper
54
Louis I. Kahn, as quoted in Joseph Burton, “Notes from Vol- and Row, 1971), pp. 143-161.
ume Zero: Louis Kahn and the Language of God,” Perspecta 20 59
See also the distinction between “lived-space” and “geometric
(1983): 89. space” in Kimberly Dovey, “Putting Geometry in Its Place: To-
55
Vincent Scully, Jr., Louis I. Kahn (New York: George Bra- ward a Phenomenology of the Design Process” in Seamon, ed.,
ziller, 1962), pp. 117-118. 16 Dwelling, Seeing, and Designing, pp. 248-269.
 61
In Genius Loci, his groundbreaking phenomenological form.” His architectural approach tried to find a renewed
study based on Heidegger’s essay, Christian Norberg- way to attune his buildings holistically to their human
Schulz describes such buildings as concretizations of the users by employing patterns of the life forces or formative
human existential dimension, structures that “gather” forces within the human constitution. On the other hand,
and present the meanings latently present within a given Häring objected to any attempt to revive such proportional
60
environment, whether natural or constructed. Thereby systems (such as Le Corbusier’s) as externally imposed
architecture helps its human dwellers to feel more oriented elements inherently opposed to an organic approach to
or “embedded” in their world. Although Norberg-Schulz’s design: “To impose geometric figures on things means to
62
genius loci (“spirit of place”) is only one aspect of a make them uniform, to mechanize them.” Apparently
building’s purpose in serving human life, his in-depth Steiner felt that selective use of certain geometric figures or
contemplation of this feature establishes the significance of proportions was not an external imposition on an expanded
a building’s reinforcement of and dialogue with the purely functionalism if it related to an expression of the building’s
natural qualities of a specific place. The geographical, function or helped attune the building to the nature of its
regional, historical, architectural, and social contexts of human users.
a building are essential dimensions of a design project’s
response to the demands of an individual task or function, However, Häring and Steiner seemingly agreed on another
as Häring, among others within the organic functionalist of the more difficult aspects of an organic functionalist
tradition, also emphasized. approach. This concerns the subtle matter of the exact
relationship between form, function, and image within a
Another traditional way that architecture has “evoked a building – how exactly a building “expresses” its function.
feeling of appropriate use” – or at least a formal relationship The strictly “scientific” or “pragmatic” approaches to
to its human users – has been to incorporate proportions functionalism (called “absolute functionalism” above)
based on the human form. Vitruvius already taught that more or less ignored the representative function or image
architectural beauty is based on proportion and symmetry character of architecture as one of the visual arts. Many
derived from the human body, and this was echoed by within the mechanistic functionalist stream tried to justify
Alberti in the Early Renaissance. Most of the important geometric form by an appeal to either the appearance of
sacred buildings of the past – whether Egyptian and technology or a supposed invisible geometry underlying
Greek temples, Gothic cathedrals, or Italian Renaissance the forms of nature. While not always totally lucid about
churches – have incorporated into their designs some the role of imagery, the organic functionalists seem to have
aspect of either the Vitruvian orders, Pythagorean ratios, been clearer about accepting its role – as long as it was
the golden section, or more cosmic measurements thought fully integrated with a building’s functions.
to correspond to features of the human constitution.
In general, it can be said that the traditional measured While Steiner’s buildings and some of his statements made
proportions of building facades, columns, and walls, clear that his designs were intended to simultaneously
abandoned by the modernist movement, tended to relate fulfil and declare their functions, Häring’s conception of
past edifices to the human form. the Gestaltwerk embodied what was probably the most
63
thorough approach to understanding this idea. Prior
As rigidified in the aesthetic formulas of the École des Rudolf Steiner, “Anthroposophy and the Visual Arts,” The
61

Beaux-Arts and nineteenth-century academic architecture, Golden Blade (1961): 21 (lecture given in The Hague, April 9,
these proportions, orders, and geometrical types were 1922); also included in Michael Howard, ed., Art as Spiritual
no longer suited to a living architectural expression, and Activity: Rudolf Steiner’s Contribution to the Visual Arts (Hud-
modernism was obliged to abandon them. One attempt son, New York: Anthroposophic Press (SteinerBooks), 1998),
pp. 250-271.
to recapture this connection was made by Le Corbusier 62
Jones, Hugo Häring, pp. 78, 84-88.
with the use of his “Modular” figures based on human 63
Jones has helpfully traced this idea back to English Gothic Re-
bodily proportion as units of architectural measurement. vival architect Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, who described
Another effort was made from the organic functionalist the essential architectural principle of Propriety as requiring that
side by Steiner, who proposed that in the architectural “the external and internal appearance of an edifice should be il-
art everything “points to, and proceeds from, the human lustrative of, and in accordance with, the purpose for which it is
destined.” The True Principles of Painted or Christian Archi-
tecture [London: 1853], pp. 35-36. Jones suggests these ideas
60
Christian Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci: Towards a Phenom- were communicated to Germany particularly by the writings of
enology of Architecture (New York: Rizzoli, 1980). 17 Hermann Muthesius. See Jones, Hugo Häring, pp. 161.
to the modern movement in architecture, it was more or which involved a deeper expression of the building’s
less assumed that functional requirements and artistically identity or being. The latter involved an expanded idea of
expressive requirements must constitute two separate functionalism, which included the signifying expression of
design practices. Revivals of historical styles and cleanly a building in close relationship with its actual use, with a
engineered iron bridges arose separately but side by side way of life carried by specific human beings. Borrowing a
during the nineteenth century however, the former was term from philosopher and aesthetician Nelson Goodman,
strictly the province of architects and the latter that of Jones suggests that we use the term exemplify rather
engineers. With a modern organic functionalist approach, than represent or symbolize to refer to this gestalt-based
as Häring stated in 1925, expressive dimension of architecture.

We now attempt not to allow our attitudes toward How a building exemplifies its function (understood in an
function to conflict with our needs for expression … expanded, holistic sense) is perhaps only fully graspable
We try to relate our ideas about expression to life, with that pictorial or imaginative mode of thought that
creation, movement, and nature; for in our creation both Steiner and Häring spoke of as gradually emerging
of functional forms we follow the path of nature … If within modern humanity. It is this imaginative conceiving
we prefer to search for shapes rather than to impose that makes architecture – and the visual arts in general –
them, to discover forms rather than to construct them, ultimately irreducible to expression in language. At the
we are in harmony with nature and act with her rather same time, as Jones remarks, those who use a building
64
than against her. come to identify its visible forms with its functions more
readily than the stranger observing the structure for the
66
The German word Gestalt indicates more than just form, first time. Moreover, the capacity to “read” function
implying also a complete, meaningful whole that is always from architectural expression (in Sullivan’s sense of a
more than the sum of its parts (relating in this way to transparency of form to function) appears to be largely
the previously mentioned holistic conception of a living culturally bound (although it can be learned). Ultimately,
organism as opposed to a machine). This conception of architecture can act as a fully meaningful exemplification
Gestalt can be traced back at least as far as Goethe, whose only in connection with an active relationship to a particular
understanding of “complete wholes” has been thoroughly building; its meanings are indissolubly bound up with its
65 67
discussed in Henri Bortoft’s The Wholeness of Nature. In uses, its forms with its human functions.
his later writings Häring distinguished between an initial
phase of organic functionalist design called Organwerk, in This organic union of form with function was precisely
which a functional framework is designed from “inside out“ what was generally missing in the building designs of
based purely on the human life-processes and uses intended the historicist “postmodern” movement of the 1970s to
to take place within, and a later phase called Gestaltwerk, 1990s. It was the extreme reduction and impoverishment
64
Hugo Häring, “Wege zur Form,” Die Form 1 (October 1925): of the International Style that eventually led to that first
3-5, as translated in Jones, Hugo Häring, p. 77. This recalls postmodern reaction, eclectically turning back to both
Steiner’s “midwifery” reference in lecture 5 of this volume. traditional (especially classical) styles and popular or
65
See The Wholeness of Nature (Hudson, New York: Lindisfarne vernacular imagery to try to bring the symbolic or pictorial
Press, 1996), especially pp. 3-115. With comments on the eight-
element back into architecture. As previously discussed,
eenth-century idea of the hermeneutic circle and other remarks,
Bortoft suggests that this idea of wholes goes back much further this is one aspect that works most strongly to fulfil the
in Western thought than Goethe, as does Caroline van Eck in Or- psychological functions of buildings. Quoting Philip
ganicism in nineteenth-century architecture. However, Goethe’s Johnson, Colin St. John has shown how postmodernism
writings were a primary springboard for a series of nineteenth- constituted precisely the reverse direction to modernism
century architects and theorists whose work fed directly into the – a reactive movement that was as eclectically decorative
early modernist movement. For this holistic understanding of
and symbolic as modernism was reductively rational and
“Gestalt,” Jones points to a more recent influence in the late-
nineteenth-century theories of Austrian philosopher Christian 66 Jones, Hugo Häring, p. 161.
von Ehrenfels, especially in his 1890 essay, “On Gestalt Quali-
ties”; see Jones, Hugo Häring, p. 184. Bortoft’s reflections have 67 I should mention St. John Wilson’s argument for conceiving
been philosophically amplified and expanded in the postmodern- a continuum between organic “building” and aesthetic “architec-
ist direction of a “phenomenological hermeneutics” in his later ture,” a ”spectrum of use” ranging from the symbolic to the in-
book, Taking Appearances Seriously: The Dynamic Way of See- strumental with every building located at a different point along
ing in Goethe and European Thought (Edinburgh: Floris Books, this spectrum. St. John Wilson, The Other Tradition of Modern
2012). 18 Architecture, p. 62.
 68 71
quantitative. But neither modernism nor postmodernism everywhere able to produce shapes out of itself …”
was willing to accept the principles of organic functionalism Understanding an organic being and its laws required for
– indeed, postmodern buildings could ”quote” as readily him a special intuitive form of thinking, which he called
from functionalist “styles” as from more traditional styles. “organic structural thoughts.” Out of these kind of thoughts
Postmodernism did not seem to realize that the modernist he then designed his Goetheanum, where “everything
movement’s reduction of functionalism to a stylistic included in the building is also in organic union with
72
element invalidated that very functionalism. Earlier stylistic its whole structural thought.” Lively building forms
elements were employed without their original context created out of such essential, intimate relationships to their
and conviction, and the way these features were used in functions should indeed speak to the hearts of their users.
most postmodern designs left us with the impression of
superficially playful whimsy and arbitrariness. The alternatives to buildings whose forms directly
express holistically grasped functions are buildings that
The expanded functionalism of design that I have been induce greater or lesser degrees of disorientation, anxiety,
characterizing makes certain demands on the capacities anonymity, or alienation – buildings whose forms arise from
of the architect. To avoid the appearance of arbitrariness one of what St. John Wilson has called the “twin follies” of
or personalistic expressionism, an organic union of form modern architecture: an aesthetic or arbitrary “architecture
and function must be discovered. While the form-function for architecture’s sake” or an inartistic, narrowly practical
harmony may be a creative law of the natural world, its and scientific approach to functionalism. We have been
competent use by designers requires a living penetration living with the psychologically debilitating effects of this
into the essential formative workings of the natural world kind of modern architecture for nearly a century now.
as well as of the intended human uses of a building, of Steiner carried still further the thought of the ethical effect
the simultaneous origin of function and form. In a nearly of architecture, arguing that properly designed buildings
identical manner to Steiner and Häring, Kahn often would act as “lawgivers,” able to do more to elevate selfish
described how this process begins with a contemplation of human passions and curb crime than whole volumes of
73
a particular function, an apprehension of “what a building penal legislation.
wants to be”: “The architect . . . asks himself what is the
nature of one [activity or use] that distinguishes itself from While I would in no way wish to subscribe to or advocate
another. When he senses the difference, he is in touch a functionalistic determinism of human behavior by
69
with form. Form inspires design.” From his various architecture, to the extent that built form can thus influence
descriptions the realm of form for Kahn would seem to be human function, the credo of modern design could be
the same one experienced and described so dynamically said to come around full circle. “Function follows form”
by Sullivan: because “form followed function.” The two expressions
may then be understood as an interdependent polarity,
Functions are born out of functions, and in turn give two complementary aspects of one fundamental reality.
birth or death to others. Forms emerge from forms, Buildings designed from sensitivity to this reality will also
and others arise or descend from these. All are find – in a conscious, essential, and modern way – their
related, interwoven, intermeshed, interconnected, harmonious relationship with the natural world. We might
interblended … they shape, they reform, they then come more often to share the somewhat Romantic
dissipate. They respond, correspond, attract, repel … experience described by Ralph Waldo Emerson:
disappear, reappear, merge and emerge. All is form,
all is function – unceasingly unfolding and enfolding We feel, in seeing a noble building, which rhymes
– and the heart of Man unfolds and enfolds with them well, as we do in hearing a perfect song, that it is
70
… 71
Steiner, lecture of April 9, 1922 in The Hague, “Anthroposo-
phy and the Visual Arts,” The Golden Blade (1961): 29.
Steiner similarly spoke of an imaginative perception of the 72
Rudolf Steiner, Architektur, Plastik und Malerei des Ersten
“space” of architectural designing, “pregnant with forms, Goetheanum, p. 26. Hugo Häring similarly spoke of “organ-like
structural concepts,” as quoted in Jones, Hugo Häring, p. 87.
68 Ibid., p. 30. 73
Rudolf Steiner, Ways to a New Style in Architecture (New
69
“Structure and Form” (1960) in H. Ronner, S. Jhaveri, and A. York: Anthroposophic Press, 1927 [1914]), pp. 16-17; reprinted
Vasella, Louis I. Kahn Complete Works, 1935-1974 (Boulder, in Thal Jantzen, ed., Architecture as a Synthesis of the Arts, pp.
Colorado: Westview Press, 1977), p. 447. 81-82; and published in a revised translation in Howard, ed., Art
70
Sullivan, Kindergarten Chats, p. 45. 19 as Spiritual Activity, p. 158
 spiritually organic; that is, had a necessity in Nature,
for being; was one of the possible forms in the Divine
mind, and is now only discovered and executed by
the artist, not arbitrarily composed by him. And so
every genuine work of art has as much reason for
74
being as the earth and the sun.

During a period from the later 1920s to the 1960s and

beyond, when the building ambitions of architects wanting
to work within the organic functionalist approach were
largely frustrated by modernist architectural political
maneuverings, the Second World War, and economic
restrictions (among other things), those still little-known
architects inspired by the pioneering work of Steiner within
the anthroposophical movement quietly were able to erect
a significant number of buildings throughout Europe
as well as on other continents. At a time when the often
arbitrary and subjective compositions of postmodernism
(at least in its initial historicist, eclectic form) have
become dissatisfying; when increasingly arbitrary, bold,
and personalistic sculptural expressions of buildings are
multiplying; and when a too often merely technological
approach to creating “sustainable design” prevails among
those who want to move architecture and nature closer
together again, these anthroposophical buildings now
stand as at least one testament to the range of expressive
realization and effective liveability that this alternative
stream of modern architecture still offers today’s designers.

© David J. Adams 2015

[email protected]

74
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Thoughts on Art,” The Dial 1 (Janu-
ary 1941); or “Art” in The Early Works of Ralph Waldo Emer-
son, vol. 2: 1836-1838, ed. Stephen E. Whicher, et al. (Cam-
bridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1964), p. 51.
20

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