Text: Bernhard E. Bürdek, Reinhard Kiehl, Florian P. Fischer, Jürgen W. Braun;
Drawings: Reinfriede Bettrich, Pfronten, Hans Hollein, Vienna
Published in 1997 by: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne
ISBN 3-88375-270-3

That FSB has dedicated a whole volume of its edition to "functionalism" is not an accident, but a matter of refuting a wide-spread misconception. "Form follows function" is the name of the illusion, or in other words: "Form is a natural consequence of function." A strange intellectual fallacy. If this were really the case, we would be in a wretched position, since every object in the whole world would only exist in a single model. Truly an autistic horror-scenario!

The great architect and designer Hans Hollein has been of invaluable assistance to us in addressing the concept of "functionalism". As early as in the mid-1970s, he had critically examined the philosophy of design in ordinary every-day products in his New York exhibition MAN transFORMS. He taught us the amazing fact that there is really nothing more functional than the bread we eat – yet in what a vast variety of forms does this item exist around the world!

From the publisher’s sales figures as well as from our own mailing list we know that the volume “The Myth of Functionality” has become a popular textbook in advanced schools of architecture and design, perhaps because it shatters the theory of form following function so eloquently and vividly by giving examples of writing utensils, chairs, telephones, clocks and watches, bicycles, lamps, glasses, eating utensils, shoes and motor cars.