Search for Form
Reading 15
Search for Form
By Eliel Saarinen
Potential-All form has the potential to be beautiful. However, it often gets buried in superfluous artistic detailing. This does not mean, though, that form should follow function without adherence to art. What Saarinen says is that art and form should have meaning.
Organic Order-According to Saarinen, humans lost their connection to nature as they got higher up into the "fine arts," and that beauty and meaning only come from nature (and not in exact replication). The beauty of nature, he says, is in how things relate to each other and are proportioined. If nature and intuition are inspiration, form and function will be cohesive and beautiful.
Do you agree with Saarinen’s views on subconscious, conscious, and self-conscious art, or are these categories too mutually exclusive? Why?
Give an example of beauty in natural order, and how it can be applied to architecture.