Thread by @david_perell

It's time for us to move beyond minimalism.

If we want a dynamic world, we should splash our buildings with enthusiastic colors, bold patterns, and visions of a better tomorrow.

Here's my newest essay.

perell.com/blog/after-min…

Minimalism is a child of our obsession with utility and efficiency.

But in all it's dominance, we've forgotten that buildings used to be a mouthpiece for our collective ambitions. For example, the lobby of the Chrysler Building celebrates the majesty of human achievement.

On our quest to spark another Roaring 20s, we should take inspiration from the Art Deco movement of the 1920s.

It represented luxury, exuberance, and faith in technological progress. Then it glittered with chevrons, zigzags, wings, and geometric designs.

Winston Churchill once said: “First we shape our tools, then our tools shape us.”

That applies to the spaces we inhabit too. People want to live in a world decorated by color and pattern. A world without ornamentation is as bland as soup without spice—and humans want spice.

Vibrant buildings is one of the reasons why I enjoy traveling in Latin America so much.

Cities like Valparaiso in Western Chile are unapologetically loud. But they inject the city with a rhythm that American cities, and most modern architecture, now lacks.

Minimalism is the path of least resistance, where everything that could stir up controversy is removed.

The problem with it is that it’s boring. Not Apple, with its tasteful balance of wood and glass. But all the copycats who’ve copied its design have none of Apple’s feng shui.

There’s a eerie similarity among office lobbies around the world.

They all seem to have the same granite walls, the same glass doors, the same rectangular desks. and the same abstract art in the lobbies. If you didn’t know better, you’d think you were walking into a hospital.

Minimalism and modernism both started off well, but degraded with all the copycats. Minimalism had Apple stores, modernism had the wonderful early designs of Ludwig Van Der Rohe.

But mass production made both aesthetics bland.

Art Deco is the last aesthetic we had where industrial reproduction wasn’t a primary goal.

But later movements like the Bauhaus, late-stage modernism, and contemporary minimalism are all shaped by the soul-crushing demands of scale.

"We celebrated function over form. We did the minimalist aesthetic to death, our phones becoming standardized aluminum rectangles, our living rooms resembling a doctor’s office. The ultimate high? A white desk with a single, potted succulent on top."

— @vanschneider

The decline of craftsmanship and the homogenization of consumer goods is evident in door handles, where basically every modern home follows the same minimalist aesthetic.

On that note, guess which door handles in the photos below were created recently.

Here’s a lovely meditation from @simonsarris about what the aesthetic decline of door handles says about contemporary life.

Ornate door handles don’t need to be expensive and technology should be a force for a more beautiful world.

medium.com/@simon.sarris/…

Programmable Maximalism could be an aesthetic of the future.

If so, walls will become computer screens that’ll transport us between high-definition worlds. One moment you’ll feel like soaring through space. The next, like you’re paddle boarding through the jungle.

Style is how we communicate our humanity, and architecture is where our cultural quirks are most visible.

Look at the differences in windows between Paris, Porto, Chefchaouen, and Amsterdam.

Minimalism defines modern architecture, but I see it as the intellectual step-child of modernism

When you visit Vizcaya Gardens in Miami, you see how much cooler our aspirations for grandeur once were.

Hand-painted walls, marble statues, and stained glass windows are more inspiring than the white walls of minimalism will ever be.