The Functional Building:America-Germany-America

Throughout this thesis, I endeavor to provide my readers with a through,retrospective exploration of the origins and development of functionalism and workout four different courses according to its regional background, history development,designing methodology and practical works, which amount to the practice of thefunctional building in America form the end of 18th century to the beginning of 19thcentury; the functional building in Germany before 1917; the mature of the functionalbuilding in Germany during 1920s'-1930s'; the return of the functional building inAmerica after the second war and its development worldwide. The emphasis isdedicated to representative periods such as the mature of functional buildings, thecriticisms form the post-modern theories and the revival of the functionalism in thelast two decades, all of which are based on the analysis of concrete examples andsummarization in order to generalize the clear outline with major theories andprinciples of the functional buildings in those period spanning one hundred years. Atend of the treatise, in light of the achievements and limitations of Chinese architectsin this sphere in recent years, I will put forward two fundamental laws that wentthrough the development of the functional buildings, which suggest to sticking withrationalism and dealing with the play and society. At the same time, these two lawsare regard as the good ideals that can provide Chinese architects with some freshinsights into the arena of architecture creation.