Minimalist Art in Industrial Design
Minimalism is an art movement in sculpture and painting that began in the 1950s and emphasized extreme simplification of form and color. The Bauhaus introduced through their academic programme and adopted in Industrial Design. It is a Post-WW II movement that cherished with a new expression of aesthetics with the help of ‘simplicity’ through ‘straight-line and pure-color’. Naturally, it is reduced to the basic forms and necessary elements. Squares and rectangular shapes of Piet Mondrian became the fundamental vernacular of composition (plate 12).
Minimalist design has been highly influenced by Japanese traditional design and architecture. The simplicity in traditional housing architecture in Japan attracted many architects including Frank Lloyd Wright (plate 13A). Frank Lloyd Wright’s strong horizontal planes and space concept strongly influenced modern architecture. In addition, the work of De Stijl artists is a major source of reference for this kind of work. De Stijl expanded the ideas that could be expressed by using basic elements such as lines and planes organized in very particular manners. Curve line is not preferred against straight-line. Architecture (plate 13B-13C) played a very significant role in minimalist expression. De Stijl a Dutch movement in 1917 became the real source of inspiration through its Neoplastic Theory. ‘Basic elements’ became the canon of a new aesthetic appreciation. |
