If you want to explore how these concepts apply to actual studio projects, let me know. I can provide information on:
In the history of architecture, "style" has often been dismissed as a superficial layer—a coat of paint or a decorative façade applied after the "real" engineering is done. Moussavi flips this narrative. She argues that style is an active, functional component of an architectural system.
In the contemporary architectural discourse, few debates are as polarized as the one concerning . For decades, modernist doctrine—famously summarized by Adolf Loos’s 1908 essay "Ornament and Crime"—stigmatized ornament as wasteful and dysfunctional. However, British-Iranian architect and educator Farshid Moussavi challenges this orthodoxy head-on in her seminal work, The Function of Style . the function of style farshid moussavi pdf
. It is the third installment in her celebrated "Function" trilogy, which also includes The Function of Ornament (2006) and The Function of Form Google Books
A central argument of the book is that architecture should embrace "everyday life" as its raw material. Moussavi challenges architects to stop treating the functional requirements of a building as obstacles to creative design. If you want to explore how these concepts
“Style is not a surface applied to a building. It is a way of describing the specific material and formal choices that allow a building to perform.”
For those interested in exploring Moussavi's ideas further, we recommend the following texts: She argues that style is an active, functional
Critical reflection
: Rather than a blank, windowless box, she used a semi-transparent glazed screen to create privacy for shoppers while still allowing light and views.
She introduces the concept of versus "the general." For Moussavi, a generic glass box has a general style (Modernism), but a building that manipulates the glass to create varying degrees of reflection, transparency, and opacity develops a specific style. This specificity is the "function" of style—it produces particular sensations and behaviors.
The Function of Style is the third volume in a highly influential series of publications developed through research at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Each book in the trilogy tackles a core element of architectural production, building upon the insights of the previous volume to forge a comprehensive theoretical framework for contemporary practice.