Customer Reviews

Minimalism: Art of Circumstance (Abbeville Modern Art Movements)

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Mies van der Rohe said that "less is more" and that a "house is a machine for living in." I do not find that true for an entire house, but it is manifestly true for a kitchen with its many appliances, the most functional of rooms.

I recently redecorated my kitchen, and was inspired by the minimalist kitchen designs of John Pawson, Simon Conder, Katsufumi Kubota and Eichinger oder Knechtl. I found their emphasis on functionality and simple rectangular geometry to offer an uncluttered, clean and pleasing ambience for what is essentially a work room. My black volcanic-glass counter tops and stainless steel appliances contrast starkly with the whiteness of the walls and floor, all of which which are brightened by the illuminating fluorescent lighting above a light-refracting translucent drop ceiling.

Minimalist books like this one should be more minimalist; they are cluttered with philosophical verbosity. I have a master's degree in philosophy, and found the references to the philosophies of Rene Descartes, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Gilbert Ryle, Michel Foucault, et. al. to be utterly pretentious. There is no relation between such philosophizing about minimalist "art" and my rewarding aesthetic experience of the minimalism I implemented in my kitchen.

Minimalist architectural design and decorative style is elegant. Minimalist "art" is a failed experiment in aesthetics, and all the artists' and commentators' loquacious philosophizing about it is just rationalization for the emperor's new clothes.