Form follow function

As a child, star gazing has always been a privilege as I have lived from far the city around the country sides. But now that I have moved into the main city, this privilege has been taken away by the pollution and bright lights of the city. When star gazing, I have always wondered what is there in the vast space of darkness. An endless emptiness/nothing at an infinity. But do these space hold any meaning beyond its emptiness. Reinhold Martin, writer of “empty form” talks about how we can define space beyond the emptiness. In our modern society, in the emptiness it is useless as in terms of architecture, the design is based on its function or its usefulness in event or program that cause the emptiness to be a failure in design. 

Abandoned parking lot

As illustrated in the picture, the space is left abandoned with its emptiness of flat ground tho seeing some hints of nature reclaiming back the land.

Taking this argument to another example is the Crown hall by Mies can der Rohe.

As Mies van der Rohe intended the space to be limited in his less is more approach. An empty hall yet still functional that clearly shows how empty space can go beyond its meaning of just empty. And last of all, another great example is of the jewish memorial by Eisenman in Berlin.

In its simplistic arrangement, it may appear meaningless  while behind its empty form, it still defines the space as a memory for people in the future about the death that jewish people had endured through. So really, empty form depends on perception and memory. Different people can perceive different things. Like as a child, you may think space is an endless emptiness of really it can also be perceived as an endless possibility or meaning.