Lecture date: 2015-11-09
What is the function of style today? If the 1970s were defined by Postmodernism and the 1980s by Deconstruction, how do we characterise the architecture of the 1990s to the present? Some built forms transmit affects of curvilinearity, others of crystallinity; some transmit multiplicity, others unity; some transmit cellularity, others openness; some transmit dematerialisation, others weight. Does this immense diversity reflect a lack of common purpose? In the third volume in Moussavi’s ‘Function’ series, The Function of Style, Farshid Moussavi argues that this diversity should not be mistaken for an eclecticism that is driven by external forces.
Farshid Moussavi RA RIBA is an architect, principal of Farshid Moussavi Architecture (FMA) and Professor in Practice of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. She was previously co-founder of the London-based Foreign Office Architects (FOA). She is a trustee of the Whitechapel Art Gallery and The Architecture Foundation, and member of Steering Committee of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. She has published three books, The Function of Ornament, The Function of Forms, and the Function of Style based on her research and teaching at Harvard.
