American Architecture: Form Doesn't Follow Function

Frank Lloyd Wright's mentor, Louis Sullivan, said form follows function. Wright argued that form and function are one. In his Guggenheim Museum, visitors take an elevator to the top and then a leisurely stroll down a giant spiral to view exhibits. That functionality is evident in the building's exterior form. Image: Morguefile CREDIT:

When you can't tell City Hall from an art museum, perhaps architecture isn't doing its job.

Indeed, one new study finds most people can't see the difference in many U.S. buildings.

What is This? Click to enlarge and guess before you read the caption: Left column (top to bottom): Alameda City Hall, El Cerrito City Hall, San Leandro City Hall. Right column (top to bottom): Museum of Modern Art, Heritage Architectural History Museum, Ansel Adams Museum of Photography. Left column (top to bottom) Daly City Library, Alameda Library, El Cerrito Library. Right column (top to bottom): Cowell Theater, Beach Blanket Babylon, ODC Theater. Credit: Ohio State

Residents in Tokyo, Montreal and Columbus, Ohio were shown pictures of city halls, libraries, art museums, and live theaters in various cities in the San Francisco region. They were asked to guess each building's function.

They were right 32 percent of the time, just a bit better than the 25 percent they could have achieved by random guessing. The lack of success was similar regardless of which country they were from.

"If form follows function, then you should be able to look at a building and have a good idea about what goes on inside," says Jack Nasar, co-author of the study and professor of city and regional planning at Ohio State University. "That didn't happen in our survey, which suggests form is not following function in American architecture."

The phrase "form follows function" was coined in 1918 by American architect Louis Sullivan, who wrote that if "a building is properly designed, one should be able with a little attention, to read through that building to the reason for that building."

Designers of websites, newspapers, cars and just about everything else have since adopted the phrase as a valuable mantra.

Sullivan mentored Frank Lloyd Wright, who extended the idea to argue that form and function are one, and his architecture is famous for successfully implementing that standard.

Why does it matter?

"If you can make sense of a place, it should make life in the city more pleasurable and comfortable, and help people figure out where they are," Nasar argues.

The new study involved 160 participants and 12 buildings. The photographs were retouched to removed signs that would have given away their purpose.

"Buildings convey meaning, whether they are meant to or not," Nasar said. "So it makes sense that buildings be designed to indicate their use. But our results suggest it doesn't often happen."

The results were published in a recent issue of the Journal of Environmental Psychology.

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