I didn't say "functional"; I said "functionalist" and "functionalism". The latter terms refer to a school of industrial design that aspires to its particular de

I didn't say "functional"; I said "functionalist" and "functionalism". The latter terms refer to a school of industrial design that aspires to its particular definition of the former. I can respect the motivation behind this; I favor midcentury modern furniture not least precisely because it doesn't insist on itself with an excess of ornament, as Rams also inveighs against. But there's a seasonality in any new idea; after the first generation for whom it's revolutionary comes a second for whom it's the status quo ante, and most of those raised with any norm will defend and uphold it for its own sake just because it's what they know to be "normal", whether or not the idea itself or its application still makes sense. Hence the canonization of an aesthetic based originally around the idea that no aesthetic deserves to be canonized.