Functionalism

PurplePrice Mag · October 26, 2026 · 3 min read

Functionalism is the principle that the form of a building or an object should arise from its function, that is, from the use it is intended for, its materials and the way it is produced, and not from decoration or past styles. More than a movement with a manifesto and a date of birth, it is an idea that runs through the whole twentieth century and underlies the Modern Movement and much of industrial design.

"Form follows function"

Functionalism's most famous phrase, "form follows function", was written by the American architect Louis Sullivan in 1896, in the article The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered, devoted to Chicago's first skyscrapers. Sullivan himself traced the idea back to ancient roots, as far as Vitruvius. In Europe the most violent attack on decoration came from the Viennese Adolf Loos, who in his lecture Ornament and Crime (given in 1910 and published in 1913) argued that ornament is a waste of labour and material, unworthy of modern man: a polemic aimed partly at the Vienna Secession.

Machines for living in

Between the wars Functionalism became the programme of avant-garde architects and designers. The Deutscher Werkbund and the Staatliches Bauhaus taught how to design simple objects suited to industrial production and standardisation. In 1923 Le Corbusier, in his book Toward an Architecture, defined the house as "a machine for living in". The most concrete example is the Frankfurt kitchen, designed in 1926 by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky for Ernst May's social housing: a compact kitchen, studied in every detail to reduce movement and effort, installed in some ten thousand flats. It is the ancestor of the modern fitted kitchen.

Post-war Functionalism

After the Second World War Functionalism became the language of international "good design", from the International Style to the MoMA exhibitions. In Germany the Ulm school and the company Braun gave it its most rigorous form: from 1955 the designer Dieter Rams designed simple, clear radios, record players and shavers for Braun, summed up in his motto "Weniger, aber besser" (less, but better). In Scandinavia Functionalism became warmer and more domestic, with wood and softer shapes.

Critiques and legacy

From the 1960s Functionalism was called into question. Semiotics showed that no form is neutral and that every object also conveys cultural meanings. Pop design, Radical design and Postmodernism accused it of producing cold, identical objects, and rehabilitated decoration, irony and even kitsch. And yet its lesson lives on: the search for the essential, attention to use and honesty of materials are still the basis of good design today, from furniture to smartphones.