In one of my earlier posts, I talked about Japanese architecture and how it stood out to me because of its minimalist style. The architecture style which we know today as minimalism was partially inspired by Japanese architecture. In spite of its origin and development, many would describe minimalism as being easy to achieve due to its ‘undemanding' look. But is that really the truth? To understand why it isn’t we have to first briefly look at the history of minimalism...
The word minimalism technically means to simplify something and leave only the necessary elements, whilst getting rid of the unnecessary. Like with most architectural styles, it was the art movements of that era that led to the development of this particular style; one which consisted mainly of basic geometric shapes such as squares, and rectangles as well as other design elements like the play with spacial features. The main influence on minimalism was the works of cubist design styles such as De Stijl and Bauhaus. If we look at the De Stijl art style, we can identify that these works consist of geometric shapes such as squares and rectangles as well as straight lines and the use of primary colours to give a simple but eye-catching look. De Stijl was part of the avant-garde art movement. Said to start in the 1850s, the avant-garde art movement was one where artists went against the 'ideal view of art’ and started experimenting and expressing themselves individually, rather than expressing art according to the standards of society. You could say it was a ‘rebel' art movement in a sense. Avant-garde artists such as Piet Mondrian contributed to the De Stijl art movement by coming up with his view of art. Using simple colours such as white and thick straight lines, the dutch artist was able to create his own art style, that being Neoplasticism, which heavily influenced the De Stijl art style.
After the industrial revolution, art began to take on many forms and artists such as Piet Mondrian pushed for a more abstract style route which quickly caught on as we can see through the works of architects such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who proposed the famous principle, 'less is more’. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was also a professor at the Bauhaus, a German art school that focused on simplicity and how design should reflect purpose and functionality. Bauhaus, along with other art movements like Constructivism and Japanese architecture, altered people’s perspective on architecture, and soon they began to see the beauty in minimalism. This eventually led to minimalism's popularity in the 1950s and from then minimalism was easily distinguished from other architecture styles due to its ability to play with space, furniture and light.
However, many of us would look at a piece of minimalist work and think, hey anyone could have done that. But you have to be careful here. Remember how the Bauhaus focused on design as a reflection of functionality? In order to create such an environment, careful detail and attention should be put into bringing in the essentials and excluding the non-essentials to create a particular environment in which an individual should still be able to feel the function of the building. To understand this, we must look at the characteristics of minimalist architecture. A minimalist architecture showcases buildings in their purest form. For example, this means that the walls are not painted, but rather kept as it is, with their material showing in most cases. Other characteristics would include open spaces, geometric forms, clean straight lines, primary/simple colours, plain materials, less furniture/decorations, natural light and sometimes the use of nature and vegetation to give the environment a more natural feel.
Most minimalist buildings also have picture windows in order to create a visual connection with the outdoor spaces. This type of setting is particularly common in more urban areas like cities, but could also be seen in rural areas too. Picture windows usually connect to a more open space like a garden or the front porch. Minimalist architecture also makes use of raw, plain and simple materials (as mentioned before) in order to exemplify the relevance it has to nature and outdoor spaces. A typical material we would see in such styled homes is timber. It is usually used for cabinets, doors, frames, windows or furniture. Most minimalist architecture is typically very small, and in order to create a space where an individual is free to move about, space must be optimized to the fullest whilst still being able to give the individual a suitable place to move about. A clever way to do this, which I saw in most minimalist homes, is to install folding/sliding furniture, doors or extensions which can be opened and closed when required. In this way, you are free to control the space around you and in turn make the home more dynamic than restricted. In minimalist homes particularly, the building has been constructed in such a way that more natural light is able to seamlessly enter otherwise impossible spaces. For example, toilets and showers would be placed in such a way that natural light could still be observant to a certain degree. If done so, it is then able to give the individual a more relaxed and outdoor feel while still in the privacy of their well-designed homes. This is what you particularly get out of a minimalist building, which is cost-efficient, small but spacious, and a pleasure to live in. Now onto the main question, is it easy to design minimalist architecture?
Keeping the above characteristics in mind, I want you to ask yourself the same question, is minimalism easy to achieve? Where most people go wrong, is that they want everything to be detailed and artistic, but upon looking at minimalism, it is evident that it still catches that same satisfaction and completeness as you would with other similar buildings. This is where Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s principle of 'less is more' comes in. Some people tend to get carried away with adding detail and to be able to restrict yourself from doing that, shows your potential as an architect. You have to take into consideration things like engagement with the outdoors, space, light, shapes and much more. Because of these factors, I would say that the same amount of effort is required when designing something minimalist. In short, minimalism is just as hard to achieve as any other architectural style. The challenge with art movements such as De Stijl and Bauhaus was to be able to keep work simple but engaging and doing that required time and creativity. As a minimalist architect, you’d have to be able to create an environment that is not too simple but simple enough such that it is still engaging to the individual. Since most minimalist architecture depends heavily on natural light, each room and space must be orientated in a way that it will have the right degree of brightness. Avant-garde artists, particularly De Stijl artists, faced many issues when it came to the expression of colours, as their work is often very simple and abstract. Primary colours had to contrast with each other and that same principle of colours can be applied to minimalist architecture. The environment must not only contrast with the surrounding colours but with light as well.
So going back to the first question, is minimalist architecture easy? Sometimes, the way you view art isn't the way you perform it. If you view a piece as 'simple', if you try to recreate it, you will run into some problems. Next time you're visiting a minimalist building, try to observe what the architect did in terms of the factors mentioned previously.
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