Broadly speaking, it has been our habit to assume that a building; is a complete success if it provides for the utility, convenience and health of its occupants and, in addition, presents a pleasing exterior. But this frame of mind fails to appreciate that architectural forms necessarily have other values than the utilitarian or even others than those which we vaguely call the aesthetic. Without any doubt, these same forms quite specifically influence both the emotional and the mental life of the onlooker. Designers have generally come to realize the importance of the principle stated by the late Louis Sullivan, “Form follows Function.” The axiom is not weakened by the further realization that Effect follows Form.

So wrote Hugh Ferriss in his work, The Metropolis of Tomorrow, in which he expressed his ideas about the then current state of urban architecture and a fond hope that architects to come would put concept, human experience, and emotional response before mere capitalistic considerations. Below I offer a selection of architects who all, in very different ways, sought to built for a better world for people to live in. Ferriss saw the realization of a human population unconsciously reacting to forms which came into existence without conscious design and thus called for a generation of architects who, appreciating the influence unconsciously received, would learn consciously to direct it.

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Presented in this section are articles about notable architects and architectural styles. Please select one of the links below to continue to your article of choice.

• Hugh Ferriss, “delineator of Gotham”

• Albert Speer, first architect of the Third Reich

• Frank Lloyd Wright, “the greatest American architect of all time”