ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the architects and theorists understood the relationship of the function and form in the architecture. When Gottfried Semper began studying in Gottingen in 1823, he initially took courses in mathematics, going into greater depth on the themes of hydraulics, hydrostatics, and the profession of the hydraulic engineer, before he turned to architecture in 1826. In general, a view of architecture emerges whose fundamental question is how the parts of a building can be assembled in a way that results in artistic wholes that can lay claim to 'individual existence' and arrive at 'free, self-sufficient idealism'. Frank Lloyd Wright can be regarded as the first interpreter of the Sullivan's form-function dictum. The key to better architecture is, according to Sullivan, that architects 'turn again to Nature, and, hearkening to her melodious voice, learn, as children learn, the accent of its rhythmic cadences.
