FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Form follows function, sure, but UA architecture professor Pia Sarpaneva believes the best buildings embrace a third element that moves beyond architect Louis Sullivan’s famous dictum. She will discuss the relationship between form and content, illustrated by contemporary buildings from her native Finland, in a lecture titled “Form Function Finland” that will be at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 13, at the Arkansas Arts Center lecture hall in Little Rock, Ark.

Sarpaneva’s lecture is part of an ongoing series cosponsored by the UA School of Architecture, the Arkansas Arts Center and the central Arkansas section of the American Institute of Architects. A 6 p.m. reception will precede the lecture.

“I’m interested in the relationship between content and form in architecture and design, how they share certain characteristics that have their roots in cultural values and aspirations,” she said. St. Henry’s Ecumenical Art Chapel in Turku, Finland, is a good example of design that delivers rich meaning in sleek modern form. Designed by Sanaksenaho Architects for a small fishing community, the wooden chapel evokes the hull of a boat, central to the local fishing culture, as well as the convex form of the Christian fish symbol.

“The architect resolved both ideas in this space,” Sarpaneva said. “Its form is connected very directly to the community it’s going to serve, and to the larger Christian community.”

Center for Changing Exhibitions (model), designed by Helin & Siitonen Architects/Pia Sarpaneva, Tuomo Siitonen.

Sarpaneva also will discuss her own design work, which has won 15 prizes in architectural competitions and has been published extensively in books, magazines and exhibitions. During her eight years of practice with Helin and Siitonen, one of Finland’s leading design offices, Sarpaneva excelled in developing innovative subsidized housing, a difficult niche to work in due to budget and material constraints and regulations that dictate everything from the footprint of a building to the dimensions of the kitchen counter. She is especially proud of her design for Kellosaarenkatu, a subsidized housing development in Helsinki that was dubbed the “coolest building in town” by Ilta-Sanomat, one of Finland’s leading newspapers. Sarpaneva won permission to break the L-shaped building specified by city planners into two units, tapering one of them, so that all inhabitants would have ocean views, and moved the communal sauna that is usually buried in the basement to the roof.

“It’s not good enough that they don’t all have a view,” Sarpaneva said, adding that she requested design variances for every project that she worked on.

Sarpaneva earned a Diploma in Architecture from the Helsinki University of Technology, where she subsequently taught for five years. In the United States she has taught at the College of Architecture and Urban Studies at Virginia Tech, where she received the College Certificate for Excellence in Teaching and the Certificate of Appreciation for International Education. She taught at Washington University in St. Louis for two years before coming to the University of Arkansas in 2006.

Sarpaneva has co-chaired and organized seven architectural symposia, directed two international study programs and served as a guest critic in numerous universities. She served on the editorial board of ARK, Finland’s leading architectural publication, from 1996 to 2000.

The lecture is free and open to the public. Continuing education units will be awarded to design professionals.