Structure or function? Parallels between sports medicine and artistic currents of the 20th century

Abstract

> ‘The idea of building is function and only function. Form is the result of the function’. (Hannes Meyer, Bauhaus director 1928–1930) Sports and Exercise Medicine Switzerland partners for the second time with the Swiss Sports Physiotherapy Association (SSPA) to hold a joint national conference on 30 and 31 October 2025 in Lausanne. We bring together an elite group of international speakers to explore the relationship between structure and function in SEM. Both are complementary and, at times, contradictory. Nowhere is this duality more evident than in high-performance athletes, whose bodies represent the convergence of anatomy, physiology and movement. For more information, please visit the conference website ( https://bbscongress.ch/en/joint-congress-sems-sportfisio-2025) Art has long grappled with the tension between form and function, which resonates powerfully in SEM. The Bauhaus movement, born in the early 20th century, championed the principle that form follows function . A chair, a building or an object had value not in its decoration but in its ability to serve its purpose …