Phone VS Rock

Phone VS Rock

I have a something in my pocket.  It’s kind of heavy and rectangular and is currently wearing a whole in my jeans.  No it’s not my wallet, (I wish it was) it’s my phone.  It’s there in case I need it to call someone or to distract me from the dull moments in the day and it does what it is supposed to do.  Now if I had a rock the size of my phone and about the same weight as my phone I could mistake it as my phone until I hit a dull moment and tried to pull up Instagram and I notice that it is the most beautiful rock I have ever seen, there are cool patterns on it and is polished smooth as a baby’s bottom but yet no matter how beautiful it is it will not pull up Instagram and I will not be distracted from my dull day for more than like 5 seconds when I’m done looking at it. 

Which one is truly more a phone?  The beautiful rock that is in the perfect shape of a phone or my phone that is banged up, bruised, scratched but functional? Obviously the actual phone (unless you’re some weird antisocial geologist)

To me this is like the idea of architecture as autonomy.  What is the purpose? Who is it helping? Why is it here?

               It appears to me that it’s only purpose it for the enjoyment of architects and only helps architects and artist and it’s really only there to be looked at.  It may have been given a purpose in life that resembles what a building is for but it doesn’t function well as one.  Who and what is a building for?  The people who need one and for the need they want filled not a rock that sits there and does nothing for them.  

I would much rather have my bruised up phone than a pretty rock any day, and I would rather have a premanufactured steel structure and have it do what I need it to than a very overpriced sculpture that I can crawl into. 




  I do however like things that look good and function like an IPhone and a well-designed building but function has to always come first.