Marcel Breuer, Mart Stam, and their cohorts articulated this goal for a number of practical reasons: less expensive manufacturing, greater portability, and easier cleaning. Learning from the Bauhaus Bauhaus masters Marcel Breuer & Bruno Weil for Thonet, 1930s Photo © MODERN XX/ Galerie Modern Design Berlinīefore minimalism was called minimalism, the Bauhaus School in Weimar in the 1920s advocated for designs that used the least amount of material possible. Since that era, the term “minimalism,” has been deployed to refer to any object or interior featuring a marked reduction of form. Choosing tried-and-true designs that favor raw function over plush forms remains a key component of minimalist interiors to this day. One of the greatest masters of Minimal Art, Donald Judd, sparsely appointed his own Manhattan loft with rectilinear, raw plywood furniture that he designed and set alongside classics from modernist pioneers like Alvar Aalto, Gerrit Rietveld, and Thonet. Ironically, many Minimal artists created sculptures that were inspired by the clean forms of modernist design. The term minimalism grew out of the New York-based Minimal Art movement of 1960s, which gave us the platonic-geometric work of Robert Morris, Sol LeWitt, Frank Stella, and others.
The 1960s Art Movement The Soho apartment of Minimal artist Donald Judd, 1960s Photo © James Ewing courtesy of Judd Foundation But for those who favor the super simple, read on to discover how the great moments in minimalist design history can be mined for contemporary inspiration. Today, of course, we’re more democratic about taste, and it’s perfectly respectable to appreciate both the Baroque and the Spartan. In his landmark 1908 treatise, Ornament and Crime, the truculent but prescient Austrian-Czech architect Adolf Loos wrote, “The development of culture is concurrent with the removal of ornaments from objects of daily use.” Railing against the over-florid decoration flowing forth from the Art Nouveau movement at the time, he argued that the most sophisticated among us prefer furniture and domestic accessories that feature plain surfaces, honest materials, and what would-much later-be dubbed minimalist aesthetics.
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