The debate about form and function is an ongoing one. Some argue that form follows function, others, like architect Frank Lloyd Wright believed that form and function are one. However, in contemporary society there is ample evidence that function follows form, for without an understanding of form, we cannot derive function. Even so, there are some cases when form and function are one.
In LeachÆs Rethinking Architecture, Umberto Eco provides an example of form and function via a story about an elevator. While the designer of the elevator completely understood the forms of the elevator, the up and down buttons, the floor numbers, the emergency buttons, etc., Eco maintains that a primitive soul without knowledge of an elevator would be hard pressed to understand its function because of a lack of understanding of its forms. As Eco maintains, ôàthe primitive, even if he can guess the function, does not know that these forms are the ækeyÆ to the functionö (Leach, p. 186). In this sense, function must always follow form because without an understanding of the forms that provide function one cannot discern the key to function.
We see numerous examples of function following form in contemporary society with its plethora of new electronics devices. While someone who died during the era of telegraph communications may guess that our modern cell phones have the function of letting us speak to someone else, they would never understand the forms that hold the key to the cell phoneÆs function. For example, they would have no idea how satellites, digital technologies, or mobile technologies provide the cell phoneÆs function. Nor would they understand the forms of the cell phone itself that permit its function, from the use of its buttons and text messaging to its ability to take a photograph or download a song. Therefore, modern technology is an excellent example that argues in favor of function f
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