I’ve been reading an anthology on architectural theory and came across an essay by the architect Robert Morris writing about “harmony” in 1739. Now I’m not sure if the American architect Louis Sullivan read Morris, but the similarity of their style of argumentation is striking: it consists of stringing together a list of nouns, each modified by an appropriate adjective. So, we get Sullivan’s famous “open apple blossom,” “toiling work-horse,” and “blithe swan” to support his claim about form and function; while Morris gives us “murmuring Rivulets, “silent Grove,” and “verdant Meads” to defend his views about harmony. Here are excerpts from Morris and Sullivan:
Robert Morris, “An Essay upon Harmony,” 1739, in Harry Francis Mallgrave, ed., Architectural Theory, Volume I: An Anthology from Vitruvius to 1870, Malden, MA (Blackwell Publishing: 2006), p.116: “The Soul by Sympathy to Scenes of perfect Beauty, of Proportion and Elegance, is insensibly drawn and attracted; the murmuring Rivulets, the silent Grove, the verdant Meads, the particolour’d Gaieties of Nature, have their charms which Harmoniously please.”
Louis Sullivan, “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered,” Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, March 1896, p.408.: “Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, or the open apple blossom, the, toiling work-horse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law.” From Louis Sullivan, “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered,” Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, March 1896, p.408.
