Disasters as agents of change?: Or: Form follows failure

Abstract

“Under the immediate impact of a disaster people are ready to change longstanding methods and customs. Therefore act quickly to introduce improved construction methods and bye-laws.“’ Those privileged to reflect from the vantage point of their mid-seventies can look back on the rapid rise and even more rapid demise of some of the more extreme stylistic aspects of the Modern Movement in architecture and planning. Throughout the period a clutch of cryptic aphorisms capture some oversimplified concepts of architectural expression. Horatio Greenough invented ‘Form follows Function’” which became the basis for Louis Sullivan’s philosphy of architecture. One hundred and fifty years later this concept was challenged by Robert Venturi’s rather cynical reversal ‘Function follows Form’, to be followed in close succession by some new arrivals ‘Form follows Culture’ of Hendryk Skolimowski” and ‘Form follows Fad or Fashion’ of uncertain authorship. I am using this paper to add another to the overcrowded and already confusing list ‘Form follows Failure’. Disasters as catalysts, the agents of change within the built environment? To what extent does architectural history endorse the wise words that failure provides opportunities “to change long standing methods and customs”? What are the conditions for such radical changes to occur in reconstruction planning, and can the process for the production of safe buildings and settlements be retarded or accelerated by intervention and if so of what type and character? By examining some rather randomly chosen historical precedents I hope to look at some of the issues which surround a neglected subject, close to the heart of Otto Koenigsberger. Most historians have described the sequence of architectural or planning developments as if they were solely a response to cultural, social, technological or economic, or more frequently aesthetic developments and constraints, without ‘learning from failure’. These comprise isolated events that have resulted in interesting innovations, or they may have had widespread implications for an entire building tradition on a national or even global scale. This paper explores a more systematic overview.