ABSTRACT
Architecture is public; it imposes itself whatever our desires and whatever our self-image. Functionalism can be seen, then, as part of an attempt to reassert architectural against sculptural values. Architecture becomes an art of the ensemble. It is intrinsic to architecture that it should be infinitely vulnerable to changes in its surroundings. This is a feature that architecture shares with such pursuits as interior decoration, dress, and the many quasi-moral, quasi-aesthetic activities that fall under the notion of taste. A more important distinguishing feature of architecture is provided by its character as a public object. A work of architecture imposes itself come what may, and removes from every member of the public the free choice as to whether he is to observe or ignore it. 'Modernism' in architecture therefore raises a special problem which is not raised by modernism in the other forms of art.
