Form follows fiction, the inverse should never be the case. Something should preform its function well first, then look to making it pretty. Nothing gripes me more than when I see form getting in the way of function. The department I graduated from shared it's space with the architecture department. Nine times out of 10 the student projects on display were amorphous abstract blobs, painstakingly rendered in fine detail out of exotic materials. Interesting to look at, no doubt, but was that a building or a bridge? A building you say? Where do the people go? How do they get in there? What is the point of an exercise such as this? Am I missing something? Creating functional spaces while maintaining a beautiful form, that is the challenge of architecture.
Frank Gehry comes to mind. And while I cannot deny that Gehry creates beautiful structures (Disney Concert Hall pictured right), he certainly didn't come up with those shapes with functionality in mind. I once saw a short documentary on Frank Gehry's design process, where he basically scribbles on a piece of paper (see image to right), and then wills that shape into a building. Structural engineers go to extreme lengths to make his buildings stand upright, all to create buildings with horrible inefficiencies when it comes to space utilization, HVAC, even ingress and egress! But hey, they look pretty.
Frank Lloyd Wright.once said "Form follows function - That has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union." While I 100% agree with Wright here, if a compromise is to be made it should be for the sake of functionality, not form.
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