Program and Type

What happens in a building often precedes its form.

Types such as house, museum, airport, parliament, library, and stadium establish basic requirements for circulation, security, services, capacity, and regulation.

Casa da Música and Seattle Central Library are often read as buildings whose program diagrams become envelopes. The function of each layer shapes form.

MAXXI’s crossing gallery ribbons turn exhibition type into a spatial network. Flow, rather than a list of rooms, becomes program.

In a parliament, state ceremony, security, and assembly protocols determine the plan before monumental form.

Ignoring type breaks use, while following it blindly produces convention. Contemporary design tests whether type can be transformed without sacrificing function.