Minimal Architecture: From Contemporary International Style to New Strategies

Rating:
Summary: Very Well-Done Book
Review: Despite this book's moderate size (175 pages only), it is a very well-done book with amples of photographs; where appropriate building plan, architects' contact information; bibliography; author biographies, illustration credits (not in any particular order). Unlike some architecture books which emphasise merely upon the visuals, this book is rather cerebral trying to define what "minimalism" is. In the end, it doesn't provide us with a definitive answer but it raises more questions in helping us to categorise the kind of minimalism that we think we belong to. Here, minimalism is separated into essential minimalism (transposing Modernism's "less is more" to "least is most", reductive composition with usage of industrial materials, & inward looking), meta-minimalism (appropriation "minimalism"-s formal language whilst cultivating it for their own aims), & trans-minimalism (as quoted, theoretical speculation about an architecture which would allow itself to be inspired not by the forms but by the concepts of Minimal Art, taking its external environment into context as a sum of its parts). Here, acknowledged minimalist architects are omitted such as John Pawson & Campo Baeza. Rather, architects such as OMA, Herzog & de Meuron (cheekily called the enfant terrible of "minimalist architecture" for their loose interpretation of such discipline & only been used on some of their works), Zaha Hadid, Shigeru Ban, Jose Rafel Moneo Arquitecto, Diener & Diener Architekten & the list continues. Here, we are brought to the attention that there is an irony in minimalism where its original intention to deviate from consumerism is used subsequently by Prada, Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani to market their products. As minimalism is going mainstream, Prada is now engaging service of OMA to redefine minimalism & thus, individualise its brand from other brand offerings. This is one of those books that I enjoy reading again & again. Highly recommended & a definitive collection if you are an architecture enthusiast.