A Manifesto For Simplicity : The Best Powerful Design Art

In today’s world, where our lives are often filled with constant noise and clutter, the work of Architect John Pawson offers a much-needed breath of fresh air. Known as a pioneer of modern minimalism, A Manifesto For Simplicity: The Best Powerful Design Art. Pawson’s approach is about much more than just ‘less is more.’ To him, minimalism is a way to achieve total clarity by focusing only on what is essential. By using natural light, simple geometric shapes, and high-quality materials, he creates spaces that feel both peaceful and powerful. This is an article from the Fundamental Love printed Issue of .Cent guest-edited by Kevin Carrigan, A/W2009

Calvin Klein Shops

When Kevin Carrigan of CK Calvin Klein guest-edited .Cent, one of his big influences across his creative practice, was the architect John Pawson, who had collaborated with the brand on many projects.

John Pawson Architect

John Pawson shows us that a room does not need many objects to feel complete; instead, it needs balance and proportion. In this article, we explore how Pawson’s unique style helps us slow down and appreciate the true beauty of the space around us.

Minimalism

‘John Parson’s architecture is who he is. He has said that “it’s a physical expression of a way of being. The form does not follow a particular fashion; it follows a particular life.” His aesthetic and vision of simplicity is very connected with the house of Calvin Klein, and my own vision of design’. 

Kevin Carrigan

Early Minimal Architecture Barcelona Pavilion by  Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Image John Fader 

Architectural Designs

John Pawson: When people look at my house, they say it is very beautiful but how can I live like that? To me, the thinking is all the wrong way round. The whole point is that this is how I live, so this is what my house needs to be like. The architecture is the physical expression of a way of being. The form does not follow a particular fashion; it follows a particular life. The life my sort of architecture follows is not one which feels right for everybody. I am passionate about my work, but I am not out to make converts. Minimalism is the simple expression of complex thought, but one valid response of an aesthetically diverse society. It can also provoke debate in society about how we choose to live and how we expect architecture to support these choices.

Minimalism and light

I think we have to get away from the idea of minimalism as a style and instead understand it as a way of thinking about space. Its proportions, surfaces and the fall of light. The vision is comprehensive and seamless, a quality of space rather than forms, places not things. This is why, in its fullest and most satisfying expression, it is not something that you can readily acquire. A perfect hemispherical basin carved out of a solid block of Carrara marble may be an exquisite object, but in isolation, it is no more than that: a beautiful basin. It is the totality of the environment of which it is a part that signifies. Minimum is maximum in drag’, writes Rem Koolhaas. A consciously inflammatory comment where simplicity is translated into a decorative effect. Drag implies spectacle. Theatre is not the principle on which everything else is hung.

Novy Dvur Monastery (2004) by John Pawson

In the Czech Republic, this project demonstrates how beautifully proportioned lines can sit within a rural setting. Inside the chapel, light seems to emerge from nowhere, creating a deep sense of peace.

Living for minimalism

I think it is important, too, to understand that minimalism is not a manifesto for living spartanly. This is a recurrent misunderstanding which springs in part from its association with movements where renunciation of one sort or another is a central theme. I think it is important, too, to understand that minimalism is not a manifesto for living spartanly. It is unusual for a discussion of architectural simplicity not to include some reference to Zen Buddhism, the Cistercian Order or the Shakers. One may respond to the aesthetic expressions and indeed share many of the needs which these movements have sought to address. Indeed, without adopting particular codes of behaviour, one can want a place where it is possible to be still, without necessarily wanting to pray in it.

The real definition of minimalism

Minimalism is not an architecture of self-denial, deprivation or absence. In other words, it is defined not by what is not there but by the rightness of what is and the richness with which this is experienced. This is what Calvin Klein instinctively understood when he asked me to design the Manhattan store. What he had himself already perfected through the medium of fashion. This is about making the best possible contexts for the things which matter in life, paring back the accretions of surface and behaviour to what is essential. Although the glory lies in the experience of what is going on.

A profound and pleasurable experience is located in ordinary experience: in the taking of a shower or the preparation of food.

People tend to focus on the idea of removal. That it is all somehow a case of throwing out the furniture and painting the walls white. Real comfort is not about a large sofa. However, in my view, many things which look as though they should be comfortable aren’t at all. Everything is at ease, where nothing jars or distracts. This emphasis on a quality of experience is important. Some people seem to have an idea that the only role the individual has in such spaces is the capacity to contaminate. In the sort of work which interests me, the antithesis is true: the individual is always at its heart. 

Finding Profound Pleasure in the Ordinary

We are living through a period of rapid change, which we fuel with our hunger for the latest new thing. It is overrated. Additionally, we are preoccupied with ideas of the future while the present feels new and engaging. In architecture, this translates into rolling programs of refurbishment. We change everything and nothing. Furthermore, if our interest in the future is really the desire for a present which satisfies us, can we develop perpetually interesting forms which exist outside the forces of time and fashion? This, I believe, is what the aesthetic of simplicity offers. Perhaps I am an evangelist after all.

John Pawson

Paul Smith: Adolf Loos said ‘Less is More’. Whereas no one living today can express that better than John Pawson. He is a specialist in the understanding of the way the scaler crosses. A walkway over the lake at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 2006). Accordingly, this walkway is across the water, which means that the reflection you get is so pleasing on the eye. The vertical bronze colored hand rails take the eye to view the lake and its surroundings in an uncluttered way.

Paul Smith

The Sackler Crossing (2006) by John Pawson

 This walkway at the Royal Botanic Gardens skims the surface of the water. Its minimal distance from the lake creates a beautiful reflection. The bronze-colored handrails guide the eye across the lake. It offering an uncluttered view of the surroundings.

Find out about John Pawson here JohnPawson.com

Kevin Carrigan, Former Creative Director, CK Calvin Klein,

John Fader, Photograph

Paul Smith, Fashion Designer at PaulSmith.com

If you enjoyed reading, A Manifesto For Simplicity, The Best Powerful Design Art, then why not read Bleu De Chanel here

.Cent Magazine London. Luxury Mindset