Form, Meet Function.

What’s the first thing you do when you move apartments? Offices? Desks?

You clean house.

You sort through everything you have and decide which pieces can fit into your new space and which need to be left curbside for the garbage trucks.

Following this culling down of belongings comes the fun part—the need to acquire new furniture. Which is exactly what we did for the move to our new 21^st Street location.

In keeping with our emphasis on design, each piece of furniture for our new digs was carefully researched and evaluated prior to being purchased. We ended up with snazzy turquoise desk chairs, frosted glass desks, and polka dot-covered work stations (to name but a few).

But the coolest pieces of furniture (in this Extrovert’s opinion) are the Interstuhl chairs designed by Christine Lüdeke. Uniquely designed, visually stimulating, and bright chartreuse in color, these chairs at first glance counteract the idea of form following function. This principle states that:

The shape of a building or object should be primarily based upon its intended function or purpose.

By just looking at the chair, however, it seems to be…,well, non-functional.

But the Contemeporist, a product discovery site for architects and interior designers, quotes Interstuhl and clears things up a bit:

First of all you have to use your imagination to identify an easy chair in the 60-degree slanting element. But if you let yourself down at an angle you will experience something unique. You will be rewarded by a very comfortable seating sensation in a type of cantilever model that has been made possible by modern fibres and new weaving methods.

So, when it comes down to it, the modernist approach to design really does hold true—form usually follows function even when that doesn’t appear to be the case at first. Modern design merely asks that we work a bit harder to reap the benefits.

What are some ways that you can integrate form and function into your home or office?

Jamie

* A special thanks to Account Extroverts Bill, Thomas, and Steve for modeling in these chairs, thereby kicking them up yet another notch.