In the place of traditional elaborations of structure or decorative naturalistic motifs, the designer chose instead to celebrate the wonders of an emerging technology and its distribution to the urban populace. Every piece of the carved decoration is derived from the technical parts of an early electrical power system. The pilasters are decorated with braided wires, the archivolts with banded cables, the capitals with transformers. Moldings are made with capacitors and transformers, and light bulbs replace traditional egg and dart motifs. [...]
The modernist dictum that form follows function assumed a close permanent fit between building form and a specific use. But expecting a building’s form to articulate use can be inappropriate in two ways. First, an urban building should continue to contribute to the city long after its initial client and program have moved on. And second, buildings with a “loose fit” to their program are more durable, sustainable, and responsive to the evolution of human uses. Furthermore, great public realms are often formed from simple buildings that contribute to a harmonious street wall.
Another dictum of modernism was the removal of explicit decoration on buildings unless it expressed structure. But in adopting that ideology we have lost the ability to craft an architecture that speaks overtly and explicitly about function—or more importantly—purpose through its detail. If one assumes that architectural honesty and integrity are linked to an explicit articulation of the building’s content, then the lifespan of the building is limited to the period of its original occupation. But when a building can tell us stories about its occupants and their role in society, those stories inform the passersby about the aspirations of a moment in the history of their city. The transitional architecture of the early modern era and specifically the Works Progress Administration are among the best American examples of using iconography in architectural detail. This pre-modern example in Stockholm is remarkable for its confident ingenuity and exuberance.
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