Functionalism in

Modern Architecture
“The house is a machine for living in”
Le Corbusier

“It is the pervading law of all things… that form ever follows
function”
Louis Sullivan

“Who ever regrets that the house of the future can no longer be
constructed by craftsmen should bare in mind that the motorcar is
no longer built by the wheelwright”
Mies van der Rohe

“the evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of

ornament from utilitarian objects”.
Adolf Loos
 The context of functionalist
architecture
From its earliest roots in the middle of the 19
th

century, the modern movement was

concerned with
a return to the honest expression of materials,
structure and purpose and a rejection of things
that
were deemed useless and false. This concern
is
evident in the structural clarity of Gustave
Eiffel’s
famous iron tower, in the honest expression of
material and structure in the houses and
furniture of
the Arts and Crafts movement and in the
pioneering
creations of the Chicago School and the
Deuscher
Werkbund.
The first generation of modernists embraced
the
idea of giving primarily concern to the
satisfaction of
purpose in design, rather than to aesthetics.
Behrens’ AEG Turbine Factory and Wagner’s
Imperial
 What is functionalist
architecture?
Functional planning:
Functionalist architecture is essentially architecture that is designed primarily
to satisfy
the purpose for which the building is intended.
The appearance of the building, its shape and decoration should be a
secondary concern
to the requirement for the building to work well for its users, to be functional.
In 1896 Louis Sullivan expressed his belief that ‘form ever follows function’,
meaning that
a building’s appearance (form) should be determined by the most practical
relationship of
its necessary parts (functional considerations). In this way Le Corbusier
believed a house
could become ‘a machine for living in’. In his 1923 publication Towards and
New
Architecture Le Corbusier exhorted architects to adopt the same rational
process as the
designers of aeroplanes, typewriters, bicycles and ocean liners.
Sullivan’s idea became a hallmark of 20th century design and there are many
famous
examples of this functional approach to design, although inspiration also came
from
similar precedents in medieval architecture.

The functionalist aesthetic:

With the availability of new materials and technologies a new style emerged in
the 1920s
 Bauhaus functionalism
The architectural style most associated with
functionalism
is that of the German Bauhaus School.

The term ‘Bauhaus’ is an expression meaning

‘house for
building’. In 1919, the German economy was
collapsing
after the defeat in World War I. The architect Walter
Gropius was appointed to head a new institution
that
would help rebuild the country and form a new
social
order. Called the Bauhaus, the Institution called for
a new
rational social housing for the workers. Bauhaus
architects
rejected ‘bourgeois’ details such as cornices, eaves,
and
decorative details.
They wanted to use principles of Classical
architecture in
their most pure form: without ornamentation ofLe any
Corbusier’s functionalist design for
kind. the United Nations Secretariat Building,
Bauhaus design became more popularly known New as York, 1952.
the
International Style, especially in the United States
 Louis Sullivan, Guaranty Building, Buffalo, New York, 1896
Functionalist features:
 The organisation of the building’s different functions
dictates its form- the first two levels are shops open
to the street with large windows for display. The main
shaft of the building consists of modular office spaces
with repetitive window and spandrel elements. The
top level houses mechanical devices expressed with
round windows and a decorative cornice.
 The metal frame of the building allows for its height,
the large glazed expanses of the lower levels and the
flexible floor plan devoid of load-bearing walls.
 With expensive land values there was a need to build
vertically and the steel frame and the elevator realised
this in practical terms. The piers between the windows
and the four large corner piers emphasise its verticality
as “a proud and soaring thing”, though only every
second pier of the shaft of the building is structural.
 The geometric grid of vertical piers and recessed
spandrels gives visual expression to the pattern of
individual office spaces inside the building.
 The street entrances are visually expressed with an arched motif to distinguish
them from the display windows
 The ornament is ‘of’ the building, not ‘on’ it. It reflects the activities done
within.
 C. R. Mackintosh, The Glasgow School of Art,
Renfrew St, Glasgow, Scotland, 1898-1909
Functionalist features include:
 The Renfrew Street façade has seven enormous
windows that let light into the studio spaces
beyond. This provides maximum illumination for
the students.
 Studio spaces along the attic have a continuous
glazing as a kind of precursor to the curtain wall.
 Ornament is kept to a minimum. The School board
asked for “a plain building” and Mackintosh gave
them exactly that, an austere, monumental
building that put practicalities and cost-
effectiveness before decoration and aesthetic
refinement.
 The exterior form partly expresses the interior
planning; form follows function.
 Ornamental effects are largely confined to
functional objects such as the window-cleaning
brackets, handrails, lighting fixtures, window
recesses and iron fences.
 The buildings’ materials and its construction are
honestly expressed. Glass, iron, concrete, stone
and wood are treated frankly in the Arts and In 2009 this building was
Crafts manner. voted the best design by
 The building utilised the latest technologies in any
electric lighting, heating and an early form of air British architect in 175
conditioning. years.
 Le Corbusier, Unite d’Habitation, Marseilles, France, 1947-53
Functionalist features:
 The separation and visual distinctiveness of public spaces (park land, roof
facilities, shopping street) from the private apartments
 Colour is the only ornament. All else is brutalist (raw concrete)
 The stacking and interlocking of individual apartments (like bottles in a
rack)
 The visual emphasis on tectonic structure and form (pilotis, repetitive
brise-soleil)
 The modular design and proportions
 The 27 varieties of apartments
 The ventilation, and grid of internal streets
 The views out to trees, parkland, sea, mountains
 Skidmore Owings and Merrill, Lever House
Park Avenue, New York City, 1952

Functionalist features:
 Building elevated above street level gives ground
back to pedestrians with open civic space for
displaying sculpture to bring sunlight and
garden space into the city
 Separation of communal (horizontal)
and office (vertical) spaces.
Communal facilities consist of kitchen, lounge,
cafeteria, medical centre and roof garden.
 The blue-green glass and
stainless steel curtain wall
reflects sunlight and reduces
heat build-up in the building,
keeping ventilation costs down
 The building is easy to clean and its
clean lines and pristine transparency
advertises Lever Brother’s business as the
world largest manufacturer of soap-detergent.
 The pilotis support cantilevered floors that can
be partitioned into flexible, functional working spaces.
 The top section contains the service machinery, including window washing
machinery
 Walter Gropius, The Bauhaus, Dessau, Germany 1925-26
Functionalist features:
 Each distinct function is given its own space and visual expression-
workshops, classrooms, residences, auditorium/cafeteria.
 Architectural form is determined by the practical arrangement of functions
 Flat roof for use by staff and students as living space
 Pilotis allows for free and flexible planning of the floor slabs
 Healthy because horizontal windows and curtain walls admit light and air with
views out to the surrounding fields
 Fittings and fixtures are all conceived as rational, machine-like elements to be
mass-produced (lighting, radiators, chairs, railings, window frames, door
handles, etc)
 Clean lines, white walls, metal frames, flush surfaces, strict geometry,
machine precision. The building was rational and utilitarian, like a machine.
 Mies van der Rohe, Seagram Building, New York, 1956-9
Functionalist features:
 The building has a tripartite division like the
base, shaft and capital of a column following a
formula prescribed by Louis Sullivan. The
separate functions of street-level entrance
reception; of high rise levels of modular office
spaces; and of the top-most mechanical and
service areas are given distinct architectural
expressions.
 The building has a rational functional
appearance with its machine-like precision, its
clean lines, modular components, rigidly
geometric forms and metal skeleton.
 Interior spaces were mechanically ventilated,
powered and illuminated. It was a controlled
environment, sealed from the outside by a
bronzed metal and glass skin.
 Mies set the building back from the street and
raised it above a pedestrian plaza so as to
admit space, light and nature into the city.
 The metal frame allows for each floor to be
open-plan and to be divided with partition walls
independently of the configuration of other
levels. This flexibility accommodates a wide
variety of functions.
 The conception of the building as an
assemblage of standardised, mass-produced
components devoid of handcraft and ornament
 Louis Kahn, National Assembly Building,
Functionalist features:
Dhaka, Bangladesh, completed 1982
 Deep porches surround the complex screened by
concrete walls with enormous geometric
openings. In the humid, tropical atmosphere of
Bangladesh these porches provide shade and cool
air for the interior spaces. They act as a kind of
brise-soleil.
 Forms denote functions. The importance of the
national assembly room is symbolised through:
■ its centralised position at the core of the
building
■ it is the tallest space, reaching higher than
the
surrounding functional spaces
■ it is lit entirely from above giving it a spiritual
feeling. Democracy is sanctified.
 The octagonal plan is generated by the
requirements of the eight divisions of the
Bangladeshi parliament.
 The assembly room and its related servant
spaces are surrounded by eight peripheral
blocks that serve different government func-
tions. Each block is eight levels high and all
are inter-linked by servant spaces: corridors,
lifts, stairs, ramps, and light courts.
 Hand-made of concrete, marble and mud brick,
 Rogers and Piano, Pompidou Centre, Paris, France, 1977
Functionalist features:
 The building uses only half the allotted space,
giving a plaza for street performers and
pedestrians.
 Large underground car park and concert halls
 Above ground the building has six layers of
continuous space, each divided flexibly by partition
walls according to the different needs.
 Structural systems such as the tie rods, cross
bracing and cross beams are visible, exposed,
utilitarian.
 Walls are entirely of glass to allow light into the
spaces
 Interior space is maximised; all services are coded
and fixed to the exterior of the building: blue for
water; yellow for electrical; green for ventilation and air
conditioning; red or circulation, elevators and escalators.
 Inspired by oil rigs, NASA launch pads and science
fiction.
 Functionalist Furniture
“ A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier. That is why
Chippendale is
famous.” Mies van der Rohe, Time Magazine, February, 1957

Modernist architects and designers believed that the shape of furniture should be
determined
by its function and by the materials used. They stripped furniture down to its basic
elements,
using a minimum of parts and eschewing ornamentation of any kind. Even colour is
avoided.

Made of metal and other other high-tech materials, Modernist furniture is black,
white, and
gray and is designed to compliment the functionalist design of the buildings they
furnish.

Ironically many of the finest examples of functionalist furniture were finely

handcrafted and
beyond the budget of the working class.