Hidden Gems

 Does form follow function? Or is form meant to hide function to those who arent interested in seeking it out?  

Rem Koolhaas' experience of the Downtown Athletic Club suggests a notion to architecture that I find particularly intriguing, the hidden gem. The typical bystander may have never stumbled upon the Athletic Club just by walking down the street it was located on. Koolhaas discovered something that was “unimaginable  experiential  effects  out  of  an  economically  engineered  servomechanism.” While this unimaginable experiential effect was born out of the control of the architect, why does it feel like the architect is the only one in amazement at the chaos within the functions? Would a lawyer look at a space where man is Eating oysters with boxing gloves, naked, and be intrigued by this or would he just join the experience without question?

So what is this about basic form that holds complex functions that intrigue me so much? Is this a common feeling amongst architects, the fascination of hidden gems?