In architecture and design, functionalism is a design principle according to which the form of buildings or design objects is determined by their function and according to which decorative elements lose their significance. The theoretical principles of functionalism, according to the credo "form follows function" coined by Louis Henry Sullivan, were realised from 1907 onwards in the Deutscher Werkbund, as well as in the 1920s at the Bauhaus, and reached international scope in Russian constructivism under El Lissitzky or within the Dutch group De Stijl.
