And with respect to the eschewing of modesty, the new World Trade Center which is currently under construction in New York City proposes soon to be the tallest building in the United States. This is a demonstration of a form which follows a complex set of functions, both philosophically and practically. To the latter, there is an interest in housing a significant population of businesses, agencies, organizations and priorities. As it replaces the Twin Towers felled by a terrorist attack in 2001, 1 World Trade Center must serve functions of usage that are quite diverse and implicating many people. Philosophically, the enormity of form may be regarded as following the function of patriotism, with the structure also designed to make a statement of determination and resilience for an America previously humbled by attack. Its function is to reassert the persistence of modernity.
No further a divergence from this could...
A mere few hours from the rising 1 World Trade Center by turnpike drive, the stately forest residence conceived by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1934 stands as one of the finest achievements in integrative architecture. Here, the function of residential living within the context of an utterly natural and non-disruptive form is met with stunning precision. A reaction to the industrialization of previously rural settings, Wright's work serves the dual purposes of natural preservation and human compatibility, suggesting perhaps one of the finest examples available to us of environmental form and function interceding.
Likewise, it serves as a compelling place to close this discussion, revealing the height of possibilities where function does not alone shape form but where function is seen as a target which can be met by innovative and previously unimagined mutations…
