Discussions of architectural form demonstrate how disability is negatively imprinted into the field of architecture. In architectural theory and the history of architecture, “form” typically refers to the physical essence and shape of a work of architecture. In the modern idea of form, it is a quality that arises from the activity of design and in ways that can be transmitted into the perceptions of a beholder of architecture. Form provides a link between an architect’s physical creations and the aesthetic reception of these works. It occupies a central place within a general understanding of architecture: the idea of the architect as “form-giver,” among many other turns of phrase, conveys the sense of some fundamental activity and aesthetic role of form within architecture, what architects create, and how people perceive works of architecture.
Recent writing on the topic of disability and architectural form focuses on the manner in which a building becomes alienating to disabled people by aestheticizing its inaccessibility. Critics of Thomas Heatherwick’s Vessel or the Hunters Point Library by Steven Holl Architects disparage these works because they express their inaccessible elements (in both cases, stairs) as central aspects of their formal meaning. By contrast, proponents of disability rights in architecture laud buildings such as the Ed Roberts Campus in Berkeley, California by Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects, or OMA’s Maison Bordeaux in Bordeaux, France. These buildings aestheticize tools of disabled access into powerful visual statements.
These examples suggest that form has self-evident qualities and relationships to disabled people. Presumably, the Vessel is alienating to someone like me, an amputee, because its form consists of interconnected and monumental staircases, while the Ed Roberts Campus affirms disabled experiences because its atrium contains a visually powerful tool and symbol of architectural accessibility: an enormous red ramp. This way of thinking about form and impairment can be compared to late nineteenth and early twentieth century writings on the aesthetics of form. These latter writings demonstrate how the concept of form contains more invidious ideas about human capacities and their relationship to architecture—ones that cannot be addressed through the concept of accessibility alone.
