Zombie Minimalism

Minimalism, long declared dead, rises from the grave to lumber on, writes Sam Jacob. Can it be stopped?

1 minute read

January 10, 2011, 1:00 PM PST

Minimalism has an awkward parentage, says Jacob, as it sprung from the marriage of Modernism (full of utopian ideals) and Aesthetic (empty of ideals):

"Out of the dust of Pruitt-Igoe, out of the collapse of belief in architecture's social program, out of the dissolution of planning and the state, out of everything that Modernism had hoped for architecture-and the world-rose Minimalism. To look at it, you might be forgiven for mistaking it for its dead parent. It has the same eyes, the same frame, the same build. It is, as they say, the spit. This, of course, is part of its curse. Minimalism is condemned to reenact the aesthetics of Modernism cut free from politics and program."

Jacob writes that although Minimalism is basically dead, "it's all around us, multiplying with a fury."

FULL STORY: Minimalism, An Obituary

Sunday, January 9, 2011 in Strange Harvest

Architecture World Design Modernism Minimalism

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