Form Follows Nature: The Origins of American Organic Architecture

Abstract

For nineteenth-century American architects and theorists who sought a modern aesthetic, nature provided the only sound philosophy. Ask the fact for the form, Emerson wrote, confident that nature would instruct and inspire the artist to create. In making the work of art, Emerson insisted that the artist proceed like nature in her productions. But the work of art could not imitate nature directly. The artist had to formulate a method of composition paralleling nature's, translating the process of life, growth and development in abstract form. Frank Furness and Louis Sullivan applied the organic principle to artistic composition. They were founders of the organic tradition in American Architecture, part of a larger intellectual and artistic movement which originated in the philosophy of Emerson, and developed in the writing of Thoreau, Whitman, Hawthorne and Melville, and in the painting of the Hudson River School. Although the transcendental philosophy of nature was the intellectual basis for American organic architecture, the artistic concept was derived from European sources. This paper explores the influence of European aesthetic theory, particularly the theories of the French “Romantiques,” in the development of American organic architecture. It analyzes the work of Furness and Sullivan to find their methods of design and how they applied American and French ideas to architectural composition.

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Notes on contributors

Mark Mumford

Mark Mumford is an assistant professor of architecture at Iowa State University.