(RFS) "Our Epochs Lack of Culture"

RFS stands for Ruminations for Storage.
In 1911 Hermann Muthesius wrote on the aims of the Werkbund, a group of artists and architects that sought to further high culture through their talents in design and manufacture. Muthesius asserted that the current epoch consisted of a profound "lack of culture" Muthesius cites the admirable progress that preceded him from the arts and crafts movement, but ultimately determines that humanity is still amazingly far from high cultural achievement. My definition of high culture probably differs from Muthesius, but nevertheless, Muthesius explains the Werkbunds task this way:

"... More importantly that the material aspect, is the spiritual; higher than purpose, material and technique stands form. Purpose, material and technique might be beyond criticism [he has a point here], yet without form we should still be living in a crude and brutal world."

It might be easy to explain the higher "form" that the Werkbund is fighting for to be some sort of spiritual ideal that brings together the previous facets and results in high cultural achievement. Maybe what he means by "without a total respect for form, culture is unthinkable." is that the built world (basically what the Werkbund was doing) must unite and illustrate the culture of the day through their use of material form, process, technique... and whatnot. Perhaps he is alluding to his future argument for the standardisation of form in pursuit of uniting the world. so to speak...