Form follows profit is the aesthetic principle of our times.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that design and aesthetics are often dictated by financial considerations.
Richard Rogers' quote 'Form follows profit' reflects the idea that in contemporary society, the design of buildings and structures is heavily influenced by economic factors. This principle implies that the pursuit of profit can overshadow artistic expression, leading to a situation where the aesthetics of design are secondary to their financial viability. It also poses a critical view on how modern architecture and art may sacrifice creativity and innovation for the sake of financial gain.
In practice
During a lecture on modern architecture, I quoted Richard Rogers to emphasize how financial considerations shape the buildings we see today.
I love cities, I spend most of my life talking about cities. And the design of cities does have an effect on your life. You're lucky if you can see trees out of your window and you have a square nearby, or a bar, a cornershop, a surgery. Then you're living well.
A greater focus on design in all new homes would make the best use of land, create homes and public spaces, and reinforce the structures of urban life.
My passion and great enjoyment for architecture, and the reason the older I get the more I enjoy it, is because I believe we - architects - can effect the quality of life of the people.
The only way forward, if we are going to improve the quality of the environment, is to get everybody involved.
When I started out, nearly every architect I knew was working in public practice; that's where the radical thinking was done. But, there's always a danger of looking back as our fathers did and saying, 'Things were better then.'
Architecture is about public space held by buildings.
Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.
If what the heart approves conforms to proper patterns, then even if one's desires are many, what harm would they be to good order?
Crude thoughts and fierce forces are my state. I do not know who I am. Nor what I was. I cannot hear a sound. Pain is near that will be like no pain felt before.
Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others.
People are not ants or bees. We do not reason or love or live or die collectively.
A tension has always existed between the capitalist imperative to maximize efficiency at any cost and the moral imperatives of culture, which historically have served as a counterweight to the moral blindness of the market. This is another example of the cultural contradictions of capitalism - the tendency over time for the economic impulse to erode the moral underpinnings of society. Mercy toward the animals in our care is one such casualty.
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