Why twentieth-century form languages were not helpful

Modern forms that are not structure-preserving to their environment, are so obsessed with images that they cannot be achieved by structure-preserving steps. They are conceptual, but are not attainable in easy, natural steps which arise from the context.

This unfolded form does not lie in the superficial qualities such as those I have just mentioned. Rather it lies in the following: The shape is imperfect. Its symmetries are imperfect. They are not gross asymmetries, but imperfect symmetries. Its unevenness is not a gross asymmetry, but a small twist in the shape, caused by some unpredictable reality.

One sees from this example, that the possible use of schemata based on such features as curvature and form and shape, if it is maintained within modernist or post-modernist or deconstructivist imagery, will not accomplish a path toward unfolded living form, because it does not take seriously the _content_ of living structure, and only strives to create an apparent similarity, while leaving the deep gulf between the two languages of form unchanged. It is evidently not deep enough.

An effective living process for our time must not only, in principle, be able to generate living structure. Somehow, the process must also contain the right elements, the words and syllables which do actually make it possible to create living structure in buildings. That means, a living process in architecture must contain schemata specific to architecture, which may be combined and recombined to build living structure.

#book/The Nature of Order/2 The process of creating life/16 Form language and style#