Article by Dr. João Cortesão
“Where is your stuff?”, people often ask when they walk into my home. “These are my stuff” is my answer. When Ian invited me to write about minimalism in landscape architecture, my answer was “I am not a minimalist at the professional level, it is just my way of living”. Ian: “can you link that way of living to landscape architecture?”. This column is the result of me answering him: “I will try”.
I have been a minimalist since I was a child. I do not know why minimalism has always been inside me and, quite frankly, I find the ‘why’ unimportant. It is as Peter Zumthor writes:
“[…] in my boyhood I used to make things according to my ideas, things that had to be just right, for reasons which I do not really understand. It was always there, this deeply personal feeling for the things I made for myself, and I never thought of it as being anything special. It was just there.”
(Zumthor, 2017; 39)
I regularly ask myself: “do I really need these stuff?” and “what does this mean to me now?” It does not take me long till I give all unnecessary/meaningless stuff away. The resulting emptiness of walls, shelves, rooms; seeing those objects that mean the most to me gives me a feeling of freedom and quietness. Every single object I own has either an utilitarian or an irreplaceable emotional function.
Only keeping objects with an utilitarian or deep emotional function.
Minimalism does not mean owing nothing – it means having the strictly necessary for a functional and meaningful life. In landscape architecture thus, minimalism certainly does not mean doing nothing, changing nothing. We could conceive it as knowing what does a site essentially needs, keeping design solutions simple and weighing whether or not an intervention is even necessary. Simply staying critical, focussing on the essential and making smart choices.
The “Less is more” motto (Rohe, 2005). For minimalism in landscape architecture I would think of smart is better than a lot. I see it as finding “the right measure, the right quantity, the right size and the right shape” (Zumthor, 2017; 98). Spatial designers tend to want to do a lot, as if by doing so we fulfil our mission the best. But can a site just be good as it is and require little or no intervention? Think of the 1996’s refurbishment of the Léon Aucoc square, in Bordeaux, by Lacaton & Vassal.
I could see minimalism in landscape architecture as conceptual and draw decluttering – adding, changing, subtracting the strictly necessary to create functional, healthy, safe, meaningful and beautiful landscapes. Architectural compositions that are clear and comprehensible, where details do not distract from the whole and the whole could not exist without the details. Design concepts and schemas that are pragmatic, unpretentious, simple and direct.
Design concepts and schemas that are clear, pragmatic, unpretentious, simple and direct. 25 de Abril Square, Alcobaça (Portugal), by Gonçalo Byrne and João Pedro Falcão de Campos.
Having inner images of the world is intrinsic to humans and these are as bounded to reason as they are to emotion (Damásio, 2011). My inner images of minimalism are plain and simple volumes, clear cut shapes, few colours, clear contrasts and light. Pure geometrical shapes resulting from the dialogue between Cartesian rules and the chaos of nature. Quietness, essence, spirit, silence, elegance, dignity, joy, happiness, wonder and beauty – values that the world needs, as I see it.
In “a society that celebrates the inessential, architecture [and landscape architecture] can put up a resistance [and] counteract the waste of forms and meanings” (Zumthor, 2017; 27). Architectural forms can help processing the fast-paced changes our societies are undergoing. Can then minimalism be an opportunity in landscape architecture?
Values of quietness, essence, spirit, silence, elegance, dignity, joy, happiness, wonder and beauty. Nezu museum, Tokyo (Japan), by Kengo Kuma and Associates.
Smart is better than a lot. Inspired by the ideas of Scott (1998), for example, why not taking small steps, observing and then planning the next move, instead of creating front-end deterministic, complicated spaces? Doing a lot is not a guarantee for success. Perhaps we should declutter design concepts and schemas and, thereby, focus again on what really matters: the essence of space, time and people. Not anymore on acritical thinking or the designer’s ego.
Minimalism can instigate values I believe to be essential to contemporary landscape architecture: this kind of untroubled movements; this fluidity and ease of information; this understated yet powerful, intemporal elegance and meaning.
References
Damásio, A. (2011). O Erro de Descartes. Emoção, Razão e Cérebro Humano. Círculo de Leitores.
Rohe, L. M. van der. (2005). Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (F. J. Marión, J. L. Albaladejo, & J. M. . T. Nadal (eds.); Second Edi). Colegio Oficial de Aparejadores y Arquitectos Técnicos de la Región de Murcia, Consejería de Educación y Cultura de la Región de Murcia, Fundación Cajamurcia.
Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing like a state: how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. Yale University Press.
Zumthor, P. (2017). Peter Zumthor. Thinking Architecture (Third Edit). Birkhäuser.
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