¶ Form Cannot Follow Function (2)
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Index Entry
Form Cannot Follow Function:
"One of the many characteristics of tensile strength is that you can’t see it. When we say form follows function and if a form is stronger then we ought to be able to see it. But alloys make it possible to do things with less. Therefore form is not following function at all. In the advanced technology form is not following function. All the form is where you can see it. The functions are invisible. There are not forms following the functions at all. There is a great computer. It is just a black box. What does it do? You don’t know what it does. There is no disclosure of the function whatsoever by the really advanced technology.
“In our cultural life we have been preoccupied with being very modern, consoling ourselves, in fact boasting, that form follows function. We are being very frank. We are not putting a lot of orders and decorations on here at all. But we are not being modern at all. We are being just the opposite and fooling ourselves because form cannot follow function. This is what we mean by the trend to invisibility.”
(Slightly adapted.)
