Functionalistic aesthetics are holistic theories on beauty and therefore especially
appreciated in those areas of art that aim at the so-called unity of art and life or
of beauty and everyday life. These are applied arts, such as design and architecture,
with their obligation toward the utility of their products, like the modern avantgardes,
due to their anti-aesthetic and anti-academic principles but also aesthetic
traditionalists who believe that the beauty of an object is created through the process
of optimizing its use over the course of generations. In the artistic expression of the
protagonists of these “movements,” the principles of functionalistic aesthetics are
applied through aesthetic ideas and patterns, which create something like a genuine
style: aesthetic functionalism (Eisel 2007). Based on the underlying aesthetic
ideas and the political conception of the “greater good,” this style is divided into
at least two variations: mechanistic and organicistic functionalism. In both styles,
beauty is understood as a quality of objects that stimulates the senses and produces
pleasure. This is not merely a relation of cause and effect, but also a means to an
end. Beauty’s function is to point to the qualities of objects that are beneficial to the well-being of humans as well as to the whole world. The concept of the world as an