The historical origins of the de-cluttered home

Religion, art and politics have all led to the minimalist idea of "less is more". Dominic Lutyens explores the ideas and aesthetics behind pared-back simplicity.

Strictly speaking, the word "minimalist" belongs to the world of fine art. It was first used in the early 20th Century to describe an uncompromisingly abstract artwork by avant-garde Russian painter Kazimir Malevich, The Black Square, 1915. Later, in the 1950s and '60s, the label was given to an emerging band of like-minded US artists who sought to distance themselves from Abstract Expressionism. The new generation of Minimalists exchanged wild self-expression for hard-edged or monochrome paintings or sculptures in the form of grids or crisply rectilinear cubes.

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Yet the label didn't stick exclusively to art for long, and was soon used to more broadly to describe music, fashion and even cookery that shared an aesthetic preference for extreme simplicity. The late Minimalist artist Donald Judd encouraged a crossover between minimalist art and interiors when he transformed a former factory in SoHo, New York into his home and studio. Now open to the public, this space boasts his collection of around 200 artworks, all displayed in gallery-like, sparsely furnished interiors. He lived there with his then wife, dancer Julie Finch, and their top-floor bedroom featured a sleeping platform designed by Judd, topped by white, floor-level beds, and surrounded with art by Judd, Claes Oldenburg and Dan Flavin. 

A taste for simplicity in interiors has fallen in and out of favour for centuries, influenced not just by aesthetic preferences but, more profoundly, by religion, philosophy, politics and economics, too. Architectural historian and cartoonist Osbert Lancaster observed this in his 1964 book, A Cartoon History of Architecture, a survey of architecture and interiors from the Parthenon to 1960s high-rise housing.  

Early on in his interiors-through-the-ages-chronicle, Lancaster highlights "the Spartan simplicity of the Norman home". But during the Middle Ages, he writes, "the upper classes began to interest themselves in… decoration and the plain whitewashed walls of their Norman ancestors were hidden behind tapestries, painted canvas or frescoes, according to the financial resources of the householder". By contrast, the Elizabethan era ushered in "decoration for decoration's sake… The simple, linen-fold ling of Tudor times had given way to acres of woodwork carved and chiselled with patterns of quite staggering complication and hideousness." However, he points out, the Jacobean era that followed (during the reign of King James I), heralded "a progressive and welcome simplification".

Religion also influenced interiors, notes Lancaster. The Reformation reined in ornamentation inside its churches because it was "equated with idolatry". He wrote: "For the Calvinist, the problem of adornment was forcefully… solved by the simple device of almost total suppression."

This yearning for simplicity is still shared by the Christian sect the Shakers, founded in England and whose first settled in the US in the 1780s. Its adherents have traditionally produced practical furniture, such as skeletal ladderback chairs made from inexpensive woods such as pine, while the walls of their plain interiors have featured continuous peg rails to hang the lightweight chairs when they're not in use. Shaker or Shaker-style furniture was coveted in the minimalism-loving 1990s.

Lutheranism, another branch of early Protestantism, was adopted in Finland (then part of Sweden) and its influence later dovetailed with the purity of form espoused by modernism. According to Teemu Kiiski, CEO of Finnish Design Shop, which sells design from Nordic countries: "The Lutheran tradition affected the development of the Finnish minimalist aesthetic. Its asceticism in architecture and interiors and its endeavour to abolish all frills had the same agenda as modernism. Its ideals led early modernist Finnish designers to seek out minimalistic solutions [and this led] modernist designers to study the simple furniture and tools of Finnish folk culture.

"A scarcity of natural resources in Finland, save for wood, also informed the minimalist aesthetic of Finnish interiors and design," Kiiski tells BBC Culture. "In the early 20th Century, designers learnt to use materials economically and innovatively, starting with Aino and Alvar Aalto's work, epitomised by Alvar's simple, functional Stool 60 of 1933, still an essential piece in Finnish homes." Typical, too, of this aesthetic were the uncluttered interiors of Alvar Aalto's Villa Mairea, which was designed in the late 1930s, and inspired by Finnish and Japanese design. An important heir to this tradition, says Kiiski, is woodworker Kari Virtanen, who collaborated with Aalto when he was very young and set up his workshop, Nikari, in 1967.

When it comes to modernism, Lancaster applauds the way functionalism stripped interiors of fussy features but, in his view, by the late 20th Century, this trend had gone too far: "Functionalism, that arose as… a praiseworthy reaction against 19th-Century architectural fancy dress, has been exalted into a dogma so that now nothing is ever left to our imagination." However, he amusingly noted that even British fans of modernism pushed back against plain, angular interiors by domesticating them with plants and ornaments. "The cactus sprouts where once flourished the aspidistra… the little bronze from Benin grimaces where smiled the shepherdess from Dresden".

Radically modern

Yet it was modernism that wholeheartedly and self-consciously championed minimalist, open-plan, white-walled interiors. These spaces emphasised the connection between outdoors, making rooms feel more spacious. Adolf Loos articulated early modernism's aims with his 1908 polemical essay, Ornament and Crime, which took its main inspiration from the simplicity of vernacular architecture. Another modernist luminary, architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who described his buildings as "skin and bones", championed minimalist interiors, complemented by his radically modern, tubular steel cantilevered furniture. Van der Rohe, a director of the Bauhaus from 1930 to 1933, who emigrated to the US in 1937, lived by the motto "Less is more".

The 1990s witnessed a craving for minimalist spaces, no doubt in reaction against one of the key trends of the 1980s – chintzy, frou-frou interiors. This was boosted by a revival of traditional interiors in Japan as the country sank into recession in the early 90s, according to Michiko Rico Nosé, author of the book, Japan Modern: New Ideas for Contemporary Living. "Possibly the most traditional element in a Japanese house is the washitsu or tatami room, with no equivalent in the West. It is a room defined by flooring of fixed-size straw mats," she writes. "By 1965, as most Japanese raced to Westernise their houses, only 55% of homes had such a room. Since the bubble years, however, there has been a reversal: according to a 1998 study, 91% of houses had a washitsu."

The book featured such projects as architect Kazuhiko Namba's design for a home in Chiba near Tokyo as an emblem of simplicity. Namba mainly deployed inexpensive plywood to create fitted cupboards, beds and other furniture in order to enhance the house's open, uncluttered style.

Judd's factory conversion meant he became an early pioneer of the loft-apartment phenomenon that took cities all over the world by storm, with the craze for converting warehouses and other former industrial spaces peaking in the 1990s. Judd's decision to preserve the internal fabric of the cast-iron building – its open-plan layout, wooden floors and bare plaster walls – and let daylight flood through the huge windows was highly influential, providing a template for minimalist interiors for years to come. In the 1990s, minimalist interiors were associated with serenity and calming qualities. The style caught on in public spaces, too, a notable example being Swiss architect Peter Zumthor's Thermal Baths in Vals, Switzerland. "The baths' restrained interiors have a material palette of the utmost simplicity," says Amrit Marway, associate director at architects practice Architecture for London, which specialises in minimalist, sustainable interiors. "They're reduced almost entirely to stone and water. Monolithic blocks of locally quarried stone create calming, cave-like spaces framing views of the pools and landscape outside. In this environment, bathing becomes a meditative, primeval pleasure."

A wider acceptance of eclecticism in recent years, resulting in a vogue for exuberant maximalism, has seen the popularity of minimalism fade. A younger generation of influential designers, such as Luke Edward Hall and Rachel Chudley, have espoused maximalism as they rediscovered antiques and historical references long banished from homes by the previous generation. But now minimalist interiors, reflecting a growing awareness of and commitment to sustainability, coupled with a desire to make a visual impact with fewer elements, are returning to fashion.

Today, a push for sustainability could see the popularity of minimalist interiors grow for years to come. One contemporary example is Architecture for London's Low Energy House in Muswell Hill, London, which features a limited palette of natural materials, including stone, wood and lime plaster.

But Marway cautions against assuming that minimalism and sustainability are automatically interrelated. "There can be a connecting thread between minimalism and sustainability. However, with all building projects, sustainability is all in the detail of both design and construction. Robust, natural materials, such as stone and solid timber, are often associated with minimal interiors. They stand the test of time and generally have low embodied energy – the energy used in extraction, processing and delivery – so are great to use. Yet concrete and steel, often associated with the minimal style, usually have a much higher embodied energy and should therefore be reduced or designed out altogether if possible.”

"Three years ago, we had to convince clients to be more sustainable and minimal with their design choices," says Marway. "We'd ask things like, 'Do you really need a complex air-conditioning system that hogs space and wastes energy when you could have better insulation instead">window._taboola = window._taboola || []; _taboola.push({ mode: 'alternating-thumbnails-a', container: 'taboola-below-article', placement: 'Below Article', target_type: 'mix' });