Empty Spaces, Empty forms

From my understanding, ‘empty space’ and ‘empty form’ are not the same thing, but very closely related.  These terminologies are derived from a theory, so there are no exact meanings to them, depending on each person’s interpretation.

Empty space, from my point of view, refers more to the physical characteristic, like empty room, abandoned buildings, etc. this can be caused from many factors, such as restrictions made (like IIT Crown Hall that have a lot of confinement to the users), but the main reason, I think, is that its function ceased to exist.  Buildings that were designed using “form follows function” way almost always have a couple of specific uses.  If those uses disappear, the buildings usually cannot survive.  Examples are old factories that are abandoned due to the use of outsource in modern world.

Empty forms, again, from my point of view, refer to a more abstract field.  They are forms that have no specific use or function, but they were created to be ambiguous, leaving the usage open for users renditions. One of the examples would be the ‘Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe’ by Peter Eisenman.  It is indeed built in memories to the Jews murdered during the World War II, but since its form is just clusters of rectangles in a big field, there are so many possibilities of what these forms can be

Nevertheless, empty spaces can be empty forms.  Looking back at those abandoned factories, many of them were reused and renovated, but not as functioning factories anymore, but as houses, shops, and condominiums.  In this case the user decided to look for the new function, new interpretation, of the existing structure and completely changed the use of it.

From my point of view, empty forms are a better design goal for us architects.  Since functions of architecture can change over time, designing an empty form is an interesting solution to make sure the architecture we design is built to last.