American architect and designer Louis Sullivan coined the phrase ¨form follows function¨ to summarize the basic principle that solely the efficiency of an object's development, operation, and maintenance should determine its design.
Design reformers in the 19th century and Modernists in the early 20th century adopted this adage along with ¨fitness for purpose,¨ that is, that an object's purpose rather than its adornment should determine its characteristics. Modern architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier took this attitude towards design to extremes; indeed, the latter described a building as a ¨machine to live in.¨
In reality few Modernist designers stringently adhered to this ideal, choosing instead to incorporate it in their exploration of excitingly new (albeit decorative) materials, technologies and abstract forms.