The Function of Style Flexibound – October 1, 2014

One of a trilogy (with The Function of Form and The Function of Ornament) of excellent survey/catalogs by Ms. Moussavi of mostly 21st century architecture/projects. The format and content are similar to many contemporary architectural project surveys having been and being published these days - two pages project, catalogued by type. At close to 600 pages, it is another "fat-book" by a contemporary architect... but absent of the typical pseudo theory and diatribes that these books usually purvey. All three of these books are particular useful to a practioner.

I've received this gorgeous book today, exactly what I was expected. Well defined and I love every single part of it...the colour coding, pictures, texts all are thoughtfully managed.When I read through the book I feel like Farshid is sitting in front of me and explaining it to me which is amazing.To me it has got something more than The Function of Form and I totally feel the trend of developing the ideas in the context of the whole story. It was just a quick review from someone who bought the book before being available in the stock. ...great book, strongly recommend

dude, if you are an architect or architecture student, this book is a masterpiece. This and Function of Form and the soon to print second edition of Function of Ornament are must have's.

An invaluable tool for my office

The drawings are fine.

Great book, even greater price.

Farshid Moussavi’s newest compendium seeks to find shared conventions (or what she terms “affects”) among certain typologies which create spaces for “residing, for listening to concerts, for working, for viewing exhibitions, for traveling through, for learning…”. Materials have no influence on style here, for her purposes. The format of the book wastes verso pages with basically decorative black and white CG views of characteristic elements but otherwise this is an intriguing if perhaps quixotic survey of contemporary solutions, what determined them and how they relate to one another. A good tool to turn to when you need to orient yourself to a particular building type.

This book collates a large volume of built designs from the 90s to the present day. Throughout a series of small and concise analytical diagrams capture the essential functions and layout of each building. Often each section is fronted with a 20s, 30s or 60s exemplar that either inspired or defined the building typology/ideas relevant to that current section. The contemporary references are familiar, yet often framed or composed alongside more unknown projects, with a wide range in projects and typologies covered. This book is an excellent summary of the most relevant contemporary projects, their key moves and their location within a wide context of architectural ideas. I highly recommend the book for this - the concise and varied content of building ideas which the book has captured and represented for quick consumption.In ref. to the theory. Unfortunately, this reader has a limited time for the debate on style. Skipping to the concluding page on the subject, the reference to Deleuzian terminology cut short any further interest to continue the reading. This is however only the first chapter of 11.