Form and function …

… The Beauty of Belonging by Roger Scruton. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Shorn of all ornament, ostentatiously declaring that they are nothing but their function, objects defy our humanity, tell us to give up on the idea that we can relate to the world in some other way than by using it. We once believed that objects, like people, should be treated as ends in themselves, and not as means only. We wished for them to be, as in the great days of Venice, enchanted by their human uses, full participants in a community united by style. But that attitude to objects has been banished to the realm of illusion. It is a fairy tale, like Father Christmas.