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MINIM
ALISM
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, wherein artists intend to expose the essence or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts.
Minimalism is any design or style wherein the simplest and fewest elements are used to create the maximum effect.As a specific movement in the arts it is identified with developments in post–World War II Western Art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s.
It derives from the reductive aspects of Modernism and is often interpreted as a reaction against Abstract Expressionism and a bridge to Post-minimal art practices.
Prominent artists associated with this movement include:1- Donald Judd2- John McCracken3- Agnes Martin4- Dan Flavin5- Robert Morris6- Anne Truitt7- Frank Stella.
The terms have expanded to encompass a movement in music that features such repetition and iteration. The term "minimalist" often colloquially refers to anything that is spare or stripped to its essentials. It has also been used to describe the plays and novels of Samuel Beckett.
The reconstruction of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s German Pavilion in Barcelona
The term Minimalism is also used to describe a trend in design and architecture wherein the subject is reduced to its necessary elements.
Minimalistic design has been highly influenced by Japanese traditional design and architecture.
The work of De Stijl artists is a major source of reference for such work: De Stijl expanded the ideas that could be expressed by very particularly organizing such basic elements as lines and planes.
1.Architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Adopted the motto "Less is more " to describe his aesthetic tactic of arranging the numerous necessary components of a building to create an impression of extreme simplicity by enlisting every element and detail to serve multiple visual and functional purposes (for example, designing a floor to also serve as the radiator, or a massive fireplace to also house the bathroom).
2. Designer Buckminster Fuller
Adopted the engineer's goal of "Doing more with less " but his concerns were oriented towards technology and engineering rather than aesthetics.
3. Industrial designer Dieter Rams motto, Adapted from Mies the concept "Less but better". The structure uses relatively simple elegant designs; ornamentations are good rather than many. Lighting, using the basic geometric shapes as outlines, using only a single shape or a small number of like shapes for components for design unity, and using tasteful non-fussy bright color combinations, (usually natural textures and colors) and clean and fine finishes also influence a structure's beauty.
Sometimes using the beauty of natural patterns on stone cladding and real wood encapsulated within ordered simplified structures along with real metal produces a simplified but prestigious architecture and interior design.
Color brightness balance and contrast between surface colors can improve visual aesthetics.
The structure would usually have industrial and space age style utilities (lamps, stoves, stairs, technology, etc.) neat and straight components (like walls or stairs) that appear to be machined with equipment, flat or nearly flat roofs, pleasing negative spaces, and large windows to let in much sunlight.
Minimalism and science fiction may have contributed to the late twentieth century futuristic architecture design and modern home decor. Modern minimalistic home architecture probably led to the popularity of the open plan kitchen and living room style by removing unnecessary internal walls
4. Designer Luis Barragan
He is another exemplary modern, minimalist designer. He is a Minimalist architectural designer focus on:
The connection between perfect planes, elegant lighting, and careful consideration of the void spaces left by the removal of three-dimensional shapes from an architectural design.
More attractive minimalistic home designs are not truly minimalistic because these use more expensive building materials and finishes and are larger.
MINIMALIST ARCHITECTURE AND SPACE
The term ‘minimalism’ is a trend from early 19th century and gradually became an important movement in response to the over decorated design of the previous period.
Minimalist architecture became popular in the late 1980s in London and New York, where architects and fashion designers worked together in the boutiques to achieve simplicity, using white elements, cold lighting, large space with minimum objects and furniture.
Minimalist architecture simplifies living space to reveal the essential quality of buildings and conveys simplicity in attitudes toward life.
It is highly inspired from the Japanese traditional design and the concept of Zen philosophy
CONCEPTS AND DESIGN ELEMENTS
The concept of minimalist architecture is to strip everything down to its essential quality and achieve simplicity.
The idea is not completely without ornamentation, but that all parts, details and joinery are considered as reduced to a stage where no one can remove anything further to improve the design.
The considerations for ‘ESSENCES’ are:1. Light2. Form3. detail of material4. Space5. place 6. human condition.
Minimalist architects not only consider the physical qualities of the building.
Moreover, they look deeply into the spiritual dimension and the invisible, by listening to the figure and paying attention to the details, people, space, nature and materials.
It reveals the abstract quality of something that is invisible and search for the essence from those invisible qualities. Such as natural light, sky, earth and air. In addition, they open up dialogue with the surrounding environment to decide the most essential materials for the construction and create relationships between buildings and sites.
In minimalist architecture, design elements convey the:
1. Message of simplicity. 2. The basic geometric forms, 3. Elements without decoration, 4. Simple materials and the5. Repetitions of structures represent a
sense of order and essential quality.
The movement of NATURAL LIGHT in buildings reveals simple and clean spaces. In late 19th century as the arts and crafts movement began to be popular in Britain, people valued the attitude of ‘truth to materials’, with respect to the profound and innate characteristics of materials. Minimalist architects humbly 'listen to figure,' seeking essence and simplicity by rediscovering the valuable qualities in simple and common materials.
INFLUENCES FROM JAPANESE TRADITION
The idea of SIMPLICITY appears in many cultures, especially the Japanese traditional culture of
Zen Philosophy. Japanese manipulate the Zen Culture into aesthetic and design elements for their buildings. This idea of architecture has influenced Western Society, especially in America since the mid-18th century. Moreover, it inspired the minimalist architecture in the 19th century.
Zen concepts of simplicity transmit the ideas of freedom and essence of living. Simplicity is not only aesthetic value, it has a moral perception that looks into the nature of truth and reveals the inner qualities of materials and objects for the essence.
For example, the sand garden in RYOANJI TEMPLE demonstrates the concepts of simplicity and the essentiality from the considered setting of a few stones and a huge empty space.
The Japanese aesthetic principle of Ma refers to empty or open space.
That removes all the unnecessary internal walls and opens up the space between interior and the exterior. Frank Lloyd Wight was influenced by the design element of Japanese sliding door that allows to bring the exterior to the interior.
The EMPTINESS of spatial arrangement is another idea that reduces everything down to the most essential quality.
MA is manifest in Japanese living architecture, garden design and flower arrangement (Ikebana).
However, far from being just a spatial concept, MA is ever-present in all aspects of Japanese daily life, as it applies to time as well as to daily tasks.
Barnett NewmanVoice of Fire1967, National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa
PIET MONDRIAN, Composition No. 10,
1939-42, oil on canvas, 80 x 73 cm, private collection.
Minimalism in visual art,
generally referred to as “Minimal Art", emerged in New York in the early 1960s as new and older artists moved toward GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION.
PAINTING ARTISTS INCLUDING:1. Frank Stella2. Kenneth Noland3. Al Held4. Ellsworth Kelly5. Robert Ryman
Minimalism's features include: 1. geometric, often cubic forms purged of
much metaphor2. equality of parts3. Repetition4.neutral surfaces5. industrial materials.
