Wright Chat

Posted: **Fri Jun 19, 2020 5:43 pm**

While that message from Sullivan meshes nicely with, and leads to, his admonition that "form follows function" . . . it wouldn't surprise me at all to find that the idea that the solution to a problem is inherent is probably ancient. I am no scholar of the classics and cannot cite an example---but I'm sure I heard this message while still quite young. It is a balm to the designer, surely, and an encouragement, that there might be rational (if not always self-evident) solutions to any or all of his professional challenges.

To be fair, when we applaud someone for professing a noble, worthy, and/or inspiring idea, it doesn't---shouldn't---necessarily mean that we credit him or her with its invention . . .

S

Posted: **Fri Jun 19, 2020 6:10 pm**

SDR wrote: ↑Fri Jun 19, 2020 5:43 pm While that message from Sullivan meshes nicely with, and leads to, his admonition that "form follows function" . . . it wouldn't surprise me at all to find that the idea that the solution to a problem is inherent is probably ancient. I am no scholar of the classics and cannot cite an example---but I'm sure I heard this message while still quite young. It is a balm to the designer, surely, and an encouragement, that there might be rational (if not always self-evident) solutions to any or all of his professional challenges.

To be fair, when we applaud someone for professing a noble, worthy, and/or inspiring idea, it doesn't---shouldn't---necessarily mean that we credit him or her with its invention . . .

Yes, of course. In fact it's my recollection that Sullivan got the idea from his Mathematics Professor at the Ecole ... in Paris, but the question here was ... where did Lautner get the idea. The obvious answer: Louis Sullivan.