Peter Eisenman Post Functionalism

Eisenman discusses the critical theory of postmodernism, comparing it to the modernist period. He notes that “modern architecture was an outmoded functionalism,” and sees “modern architecture as an obsessional formalism,” (236). He recount the form (or type) and function (or program) debate, tracing it back to the humanism that began in the Renaissance. He suggests that in pre-industrial humanist practice, a balance between form and function could be maintained “because both type and function were invested with idealist view of man’s relationship to his object world,” (236). This balance, he notes, was fundamentally disrupted with the rise of industrialization, and architecture became a social art.

He argues that architects have been stuck following an oversimplified “form follows function” formula, and further suggests that “functionalism is really no more than a late phase of humanism, rather than an alternative to it,” (237). In other words, in humanism, the form of buildings and structures was largely inspired by the human body, making man the center of all things. Functionalism supposedly allows for structures to have a form that is perfectly tailored to the function or program. As such, because the program is based on human needs and activities, functionalism can truly be seen as simply a later phase of humanism.

He ends by readdressing the form over function debate, noting that instead we should see the two factors not as opposed, but as in a dialectic relationship in the evolution of form. When taken together, the two sides of the argument “begin to define the inherent nature of the object in and of itself and its capacity to be represented,” (239). In the end, then, we should not waste so much time worrying whether form follows function (or vice-versa), but should instead allow the two factors to evolve alongside each other and use both to define the evolving form of the built environment.


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