Austerity in Architecture

We have written little minimal bits  about the matter of Minimalism (in mathematics, in physics, in explanation generally).

This morning’s NYTimes has an excellent article on Architectural Minimalism, by Thomas de Monchaux:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/opinion/sunday/why-less-isnt-always-more.html?scp=1&sq=monchaux&st=cse

Note:  I myself know almost nothing about architecture,  but you might be interested in the discussion of the London “Lloyd’s building”, in the context of a conjectural Aesthetic Realism  (a side-dish to our usual fare of Mathematical Realism or Platonism), towards the end of the following essay:

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2011/02/realism-defined.html

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For a similarly minimalist thriller,

austere in that (for very good reasons)

the perpetrator is never explicitly named,

try

Murphy Calls-in a Specialist

Available for Kindle or Nook

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[Update 27 II 12]  Dunno whether this is Minimalism or Maximalism -- it sort of looks like Minimalism inflated with a bicycle pump:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/arts/design/pritzker-prize-awarded-to-wang-shu-chinese-architect.html?ref=global-home

Like I say -- I know nothing about architecture, but I know what I don't like.
Great design for a Stalinist prison, though.

[Later update]
Whoops -- and here's a different view:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2012/02/pritzker-prize-wang-shu-architect.html
This one I like, assuming that all those niches are intended as hidey-holes for hamsters.

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Some intra-architecural terminology for a related idea:

Against the Art Nouveau, the frivolous ornament, the useless decoration, the sentimental object, the Bauhaus raised the banner of functionalism.  The arched baroque and the involuted rococo  were replaced by stark geometrical planes and the unadorned curtain wall.

-- Daniel Bell,  The End of Ideology (1962, rev. ed. 1965, 1988), p. 243

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