Etienne-Louis Boullée | Cenotaph for Newton

Difference between definitions in English and German :

Principles of Gestalt

1. English : Ambiguous meaning, it can mean shape and idea or essence. 
2. German : (Gestalt : an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts.) censorial perception, the form as the idea of something. 

* Read more abut the principles of Gestalt patterns here  http://www.fusioncharts.com/blog/2014/03/how-to-use-the-gestalt-principles-for-visual-storytelling-podv/

Aristotle on Form :

he central image from Raphael's The School of Athens (1509-1511), depicting Plato (left) and Aristotle (right). Plato is depicted pointing upwards, in reference to his belief in the higher Forms, while Aristotle disagrees and points downwards to the here-and-now, in reference to his belief in empiricism.

*In a platonic conception of form by Aristotle, form is an ideal known to the mind through intelligence, not senses. It is linked to material things.


Renaissance architects on Form :

Elevation of the principal façade of the Panthéon, Paris

*They used form as a synonym for shape or for the Pythagorean idea of ratio and proportion.

Adolf Lose and Gottfried Semper on Form :

Muller House 1930 - Adolf Loos

*Form represents the means of resisting ornament, his idea was that any given material contained its own potential form.
The attitude was developed in the Deutsche Werkbund as a method of producing objects and building which were true to the form unexpressed in their material.


Modernists of the 20's century on Form: 

Farnsworth House | Mies van der Rohe

Constant Nieuwenhuys' New Babylon

Cedric Price | Fun Palace

Peter Eisenman | House X

• 1920's | Mies van der Rohe : "Form as goal is formalism".
  
• Hanned Meyer : Strove to negate any interest in form, thereby, demonstrating their preoccupation with the social value of their work.
  
• 1950's : The Situationists attempted o resist capitalism by thinking of architecture as formless | Constant Nieuwenhuys' New Babylon project envisaged the city as an ever changing ambiance through which the post-revolutionary individual can wander from one leisure to another in search of new sensations.
  
• 1960's Radical technology-based approach : A composed static form is not a legitimate objective of architectural design | Architects like Cedric Price through his Fin Palace project was a support structure capable of endless rearrangements.
  
• 1970's Peter Eisenman's early work was intended as a critique of functionalism, in his series of provocative house projects he developed spatial compositions from grammatical operations applied to elements such as planes and lines, only later resulting how the final form might be inhabited. 

References: 
-100 Ideas that Changed Architecture by Richard Weston:
-http://www.archdaily.com/63267/ad-classics-house-vi-peter-eisenman
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant_Nieuwenhuys
-http://www.bcchang.com/transfer/articles/2/18346584.pdf
-https://wratliffcgds2.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/structuralism-and-cardboard-architecture-14/


Photo references : 
By Raphael - Web Gallery of Art:   Image  Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75881
https://www.premedhq.com/gestalt-principles
http://www.archdaily.com/544946/ad-classics-cenotaph-for-newton-etienne-louis-boullee
By Jacques-Germain Soufflot - Paris BNF, cabinet des estampes, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=555099
https://ksamedia.osu.edu/work/63842
http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/project-images/2012/21461/cedric-price/reader-review-fun-palace.html?img=1