Functionalism (architecture)
The theoretical articulation of functionalism in buildings can be traced back to the Vitruvian triad, where utilitas (variously translated as 'commodity', 'convenience', or 'utility') stands alongside firmitas (firmness) and venustas (beauty) as one of three classic goals of architecture.
However, this aphorism does not relate to a contemporary understanding of the term 'function' as utility or the satisfaction of user needs; it was instead based in metaphysics, as the expression of organic essence and could be paraphrased as meaning 'destiny'.
It became a pejorative term associated with the baldest and most brutal ways to cover space, like cheap commercial buildings and sheds, then finally used, for example in academic criticism of Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes, simply as a synonym for 'gauche'.
For 70 years the influential American architect Philip Johnson held that the profession has no functional responsibility whatsoever, and this is one of the many views today.
The position of postmodern architect Peter Eisenman is based on a user-hostile theoretical basis and even more extreme: "I don't do function.
In 1923, Mies van der Rohe was working in Weimar Germany, and had begun his career of producing radically simplified, lovingly detailed structures that achieved Sullivan's goal of inherent architectural beauty.
Le Corbusier famously said "a house is a machine for living in"; his 1923 book Vers une architecture was, and still is, very influential, and his early built work such as the Villa Savoye in Poissy, France, is thought of as prototypically function.
Numerous villas, apartment buildings and interiors, factories, office blocks and department stores can be found in the functionalist style throughout the country, which industrialised rapidly in the early 20th century while embracing the Bauhaus-style architecture that was emerging concurrently in Germany.
Some of the common features are flat roofing, stuccoed walls, architectural glazing and well-lit rooms, an industrial expression and nautical-inspired details, including round windows.
[8] The global stock market crisis and economic meltdown in 1929, instigated the needs to use affordable materials, such as brick and concrete, and to build quickly and efficiently.
[11][12] Fine examples of Danish functionalist architecture are the now listed Kastrup Airport 1939 terminal by Vilhelm Lauritzen, Aarhus University (by C. F. Møller et al.) and Aarhus City Hall (by Arne Jacobsen et al.), all including furniture and lamps specially designed for these buildings in the functionalist spirit.
[13] Some of the most prolific and notable architects in Finland, working in the funkis style, includes Alvar Aalto and Erik Bryggman who were both engaged from the very start in the 1930s.
[14][9][15] Aalto introduced standardised, precast concrete elements as early as the late 1920s, when he designed residential buildings in Turku.
[14] Interbellum avant-garde Polish architects in the years 1918–1939 made a notable impact in the legacy of European modern architecture and functionalism.
A lot of Polish architects were fascinated by Le Corbusier like his Polish students and coworkers Jerzy Sołtan, Aleksander Kujawski (both co-authors of Unité d'habitation in Marseille[16]) and his coworkers Helena Syrkus (Le Corbusier's companion on board of the S.S. Patris, an ocean liner journeying from Marseille to Athens in 1933 during the CIAM IV[17]), Roman Piotrowski and Maciej Nowicki.
Encompassing more than 500 buildings, it remains the largest coherent functionalistic villa area in Sweden and possibly the world, still well-preserved more than a half-century after its construction 1933–40 and protected as a national cultural heritage.
[21] At a larger scale, the German landscape architect and planner Leberecht Migge advocated the use of edible gardens in social housing projects as a way to counteract hunger and increase self-sufficiency of families.
