If the roof doesn't leak, the architect hasn't been creative enough.
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
Just avoid holding it that way.
STEVE JOBS on Antennagate
Without a doubt, Frank Lloyd Wright is the most overrated architect in design history. His buildings and homes are visually stunning but structurally unsound. The roofs leak. There is mold and mildew. One building could not meet the fire code. Wright is famous for telling the people to move their desks if there was a leak.
Another overrated architect was Ludwig Mies van Der Rohe with his famous dictum of "less is more." That line is the genesis of the minimalist aesthetic. Unfortunately, his interiors are very uncomfortable and unlivable as Mies demanded that people living in his constructions adapt their lifestyles to his aesthetic demands. Even his famous Barcelona chair is a beautiful but torturous piece of furniture.
These two overrated architects represent the triumph of form over function. This is in contradiction to the famous dictum of Louis Sullivan that "form follows function." Sullivan is the most underrated architect in design history. Unlike Wright and Mies, Sullivan's buildings were both beautiful and functional. They worked as Sullivan harnessed the power of steel beam construction and became the father of the skyscraper. There is a certain warmth and humanity to a Sullivan building.
Form over function would find itself resurrected with Steve Jobs and Apple. Originally, Apple made products you actually wanted to use. The original Macintosh computer from the 1980s made a big impression on me. It was definitely better than typing prompts into an MS-DOS IBM computer. When Jobs returned to Apple after getting fired from the gig, he forgot something along the way. He went from making useful products to making beautiful products. There is nothing wrong with beauty, but it should never come at the expense of function.
The most famous of these misfires was the Antennagate with the iPhone. If you held the phone a certain way, it would lose signal. This was not the worst thing ever, but Job's response was horrible from a PR perspective. He told his customers to not hold the phone that way as if he was blaming the victim instead of the poor design of the product. Later, Apple would repeat the mistake with the butterfly keyboard on the Macbook. The point of the butterfly was to make the Macbook thinner and sleeker and better looking. It resulted in a keyboard that would jam and become unusable. Apple succeeded in making good looking junk. You were better off buying a boring Dell laptop that actually worked.
I put function before form every time. Aesthetics always takes a back seat to the performance and operation of the thing. My best example of this is the Glock handgun. In my opinion, the Glock is the best semi-automatic handgun in history. Everything else is a copy of that basic design. The Glock is also not visually appealing. It is boring at best and ugly at worst. Even the name sounds like you are clearing phlegm from your throat. Yet, the Glock just works. Its performance in the most trying of circumstances is legendary.
The Sig Sauer P320 does not enjoy the same sterling reputation as the Glock. The Sig is a more visually appealing firearm, but it is now notorious for firing without a trigger pull. Glock was maligned for not having a safety, but I would take that over a weapon that fires if it is dropped on the ground. I believe that a lot of tacticool douchebag types prefer the Sig simply because of aesthetic considerations. That is just stupid.
Why does any of this matter? Sad to say, we live in a time where form is triumphing over function. Companies have followed Apple's lead in making good looking junk that rapidly becomes obsolete. The fact that you can buy a shiny and sophisticated washing machine that barely lasts is a great example of this. I remember buying a boring but basic Whirlpool or Maytag from back in the day that would last a decade or longer. They also didn't cost a fortune.
The fault for this state of affairs lies with the consumer. People love a shiny product that appeals to the eyes as it drains the wallet. This is why the iPhone triumphed over the Blackberry. I think the Blackberry was the superior product, but people wanted the elegant glass over the tactile QWERTY keyboard. Unfortunately, quality does not always win in the free market.
The products that I have loved and used have a certain ugliness to them. They are beautiful to me, but this is because I appreciate what they are. My 20 year old Sony Walkman won't win any beauty contests, but it has served me better than my gorgeous iPod touch that is now no longer with me. I can say the same for the last four flip phones I have owned and used and served me well. I admit that I am not one of the cool kids wearing Air Jordan sneakers. I am the old man wearing a pair of New Balance dad shoes.
Give me function over form every time. When beautiful things stop working, love rapidly turns to hate. The bottom line is that substance matters more than style. Virtue matters more than looks. The thing that works beats the thing that doesn't work. The real task is finding those things that work. A key is to look at the things that don't look so great.
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