For contem-

porary starchitects, writing a book is

analogous to making a building. Just as architects
deliberately select and organize columns, walls and doors,
starchitects carefully select and organize images and texts to
disseminate their polemics. Throughout the books “Function of Form” and
“Function of Ornament”, Farshid Moussavi uses building substances of the book
in a very specific way; shallow texts and dry illustrations. The carefully chosen list of
words, which represents the function of ornament and form, was superficial enough so
that it enabled readers not to engage their preconception of certain words with the forms and
ornaments that the book illustrates. The repetitive black and white illustrations and a textbook-
like format accomplish a certain level of monotony and flatness. Title pages utilize over-magnified
images of a building facade to achieve the non-objectivity and dematerialization of the actual objects.
Through a series of these oversimplifying operations, the eventual goal is complete; the neutrality of value;
even platform of the supramateriality, which is a perfect playground for a pure formalist. Under the umbrella
of supramateriality, there is nothing but signifiers; everything is susceptible to the reduction of material
classification, even invisible forces. The neutral ground created by over-simplification has no hierarchy. On her
playground, she does create formal complexities simply by choosing a favorable operation. It is now all about
the technique of the operation. With a set of techniques, she generates a considerable amount of formal complex-
ity instantly, which is ideal for this rapid paced society. She doesn’t need to be deeply engaged in the meaning
of her forms. All she needs to do is to explore forms following certain self-referential rules in the realm of the

As a reader of her book and as a user of her architec-

supramateriality.

ture, we are invited to her world of formal complexities. It is

our assigned duty to play an authoritative role of experienc-
ing the space and creating a meaning among pure signifi-
ers she created. The valued moment when we connect
our own signified to her signifier through our own
agenda, she becomes emancipated from all the
historical, cultural, political, religious
clothes of the form and thus a
pure formalist.