Bazaars of our Interiors
Let anyone who is accustomed to looking at a great many pictures in an exhibition try just once, if he is still capable of it, spending an hour or more in front of a single masterpiece and content himself with that for the day. He will be the gainer by it.--Hermann Hesse
Salon-style painting collections were the old version of what we now could consider (at least partly) as "noise", even though each painting is complete "signal". Paintings are like a book collection: you have lots that you'll never read again, but they become a nice wallpaper that represents both signal (books you love and never want to give away) and ones you will never read again. A "Collection" could never be noise because each item comprises an integral whole that is perceived as a whole, like one large painting that fills an entire wall.
Partly as a result of the new minimalist movement, spartan is in vogue. The rationale is that there's more "signal" in simplicity, as diametric to (or militates against) complexity (noise). And yet we still love to collect the simpler technologies, like books and LPs, and amass digital clutter, something we now can't even wrap our minds around, because it's nicely tucked away.
In Toward an Architecture, Le Corbusier goes on a diatribe against excessive decoration:
"Why then, on the pretty villas all around, these big useless roofs? Why the scant windows with small panes, why these large houses with so many locked rooms? Why the mirrored armoires, the washstands, the chest of drawers? And why these bookcases decorated with acanthus, these consoles, these vitrines, these China cabinets, the dressers, these sideboards? Why these enormous chandeliers? Why these mantelpieces? Why these draped curtains? Why this wallpaper full of colors, of damask, of motley vignettes? There's no light in your houses. Your windows are hard to open. There are no ventilators like those in any dining car. Your chandeliers hurt my eyes. Your stuccos and your colored wallpaper are as impudent as valets, and I'll take home the picture by Picasso that I came to give you, for no one will see it in the bazaar of your interior."
And so on.
His solution was to put everything neatly into cabinets, leaving the room barren. It was an attempt to square maximalism and minimalism, and it never worked that way. The middle class was a similar compromise--but consider that history. It's probably useless to defend extreme positions on design. Corbusier probably railed against Frank Lloyd Wright's "maximalism" but that style is still extremely popular, as is Modernism.
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| The private collection of Leopold Wilhelm |
Salon-style painting collections were the old version of what we now could consider (at least partly) as "noise", even though each painting is complete "signal". Paintings are like a book collection: you have lots that you'll never read again, but they become a nice wallpaper that represents both signal (books you love and never want to give away) and ones you will never read again. A "Collection" could never be noise because each item comprises an integral whole that is perceived as a whole, like one large painting that fills an entire wall.
Partly as a result of the new minimalist movement, spartan is in vogue. The rationale is that there's more "signal" in simplicity, as diametric to (or militates against) complexity (noise). And yet we still love to collect the simpler technologies, like books and LPs, and amass digital clutter, something we now can't even wrap our minds around, because it's nicely tucked away.
In Toward an Architecture, Le Corbusier goes on a diatribe against excessive decoration:
"Why then, on the pretty villas all around, these big useless roofs? Why the scant windows with small panes, why these large houses with so many locked rooms? Why the mirrored armoires, the washstands, the chest of drawers? And why these bookcases decorated with acanthus, these consoles, these vitrines, these China cabinets, the dressers, these sideboards? Why these enormous chandeliers? Why these mantelpieces? Why these draped curtains? Why this wallpaper full of colors, of damask, of motley vignettes? There's no light in your houses. Your windows are hard to open. There are no ventilators like those in any dining car. Your chandeliers hurt my eyes. Your stuccos and your colored wallpaper are as impudent as valets, and I'll take home the picture by Picasso that I came to give you, for no one will see it in the bazaar of your interior."
And so on.
His solution was to put everything neatly into cabinets, leaving the room barren. It was an attempt to square maximalism and minimalism, and it never worked that way. The middle class was a similar compromise--but consider that history. It's probably useless to defend extreme positions on design. Corbusier probably railed against Frank Lloyd Wright's "maximalism" but that style is still extremely popular, as is Modernism.
