The Danger of Minimalist Design | Hacker News Reader

The Danger of Minimalist Design

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Manufacturing labor is much more expensive than it used to be, so it’s no longer economically feasible to mass produce ornate buildings or goods. Most of the ornamentation depicted in the thread cannot be easily produced by automated manufacturing techniques; it requires skilled manual labor.

There’s also an issue of survivorship bias—there were plenty of plain buildings and goods produced in the past, but they’ve mostly been torn down or thrown away. Only the grandest, most ornate buildings and goods have stood the test of time.

> Manufacturing labor is much more expensive than it used to be, so it’s no longer economically feasible to mass produce ornate buildings or goods.

That's the excuse architects give, yes. But look at the extravagant, price-is-not-a-factor designs that win architecture awards [1] - the same soulless lack-of-detail they claim is purely a cost cutting measure, even when other elements of the design are very expensive. It's profoundly obvious they are at best uninterested, and at worst actively hostile, to classical beauty [2,3].

[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=architecture+award+winner&iax=imag...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Wilhelm_Memorial_Church

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Forum#/media/File:Hum...

High-end aesthetics have evolved to reflect what’s financially feasible to mass produce, since design taste is driven in large part by common (i.e. not rare) design elements.

I’d also argue that many of those award winners are still incredibly ornate [0,1,2], just not in a classical sense. That said, there are some critically acclaimed postmodern neoclassical buildings (e.g. Les Espaces d’Abraxas [3]), although these are indeed rare.

[0] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=architecture+award+winner&iax=imag...

[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=architecture+award+winner&iax=imag...

[2] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=architecture+award+winner&iax=imag...

[3] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=les+espaces+d%27abraxas&t=h_&ia=im...

> design taste is driven in large part by common (i.e. not rare) design elements

This is empirically false. 'Taste' has not been driven to prefer modern designs (unless one looks solely at high-class architects), the two have simply diverged:

A study of courthouse architecture determined that “[our] findings agree with consistent findings that architects misjudge public likely public impressions of a design, and that most non-architects dislike “modern” design and have done so for almost a century.” Yet 92% of new federal government buildings are modern. - https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/whither-tartaria

There is zero evidence that architects are trying to create classicaly beautiful, pleasing, beloved by the public buildings, and are simply thwarted from fully succeeding by the cost of labor. Which was somehow not an impediment when our societies were far poorer and less productive.

In fact, the evidence points in the exact opposite direction.

I suspect the real motivation is cost in many cases. Minimalism involves less work to fabricate and cheaper machines. The ornate past tended towards "more expensive materials, cheaper labor". The cheapness also extends towards designs - it is harder to screw up minimalism. Look at architecture blogs snarking about McMansions and misuse of decorative features.

> It is a troubling phenomenon because of what minimalism represents: a lack of detail.

First example is an old fence with lots of character, has ornamental leaves on it, that doesn't add to the function at all, just to make it prettier. The modern one, it's minimal with better ergonomics and even look safer. Not sure if that's a good example, though.

I'm surprised he didn't bring up cars; back in the day, cars had character, now they all have the same generic aerodynamic car shape.

But I'm glad someone else thinks this, I've always thought it was kind of sad that building are so boring compared to building of the past which were covered in so many details.

I was also wondering if some of this is tool related, as in, when using cad it's hard(er) to add those details in, so what you get are these boring cad created forms. Back when people designed interesting buildings, It was on paper, and they could do anything their imagination let them. One reason I find it's a bad idea to start on the computer as you are limited to how well you know how to use the program.

To be honest, I kinda like the Brutalism idea as in "modern functionalism". Maybe that has to do because I grew up in a city that featured these brutalist buildings throughout the 60s, 70s, 80s. It is somewhat minimalistic but also contains some aesthetic quality.

> Somebody might not like a detail (read: character) so there can be no details.

I don't think this excuse is valid. People can dislike lack of character just as much or more than the "wrong" character. I certainly do.

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