Furnitures: A Dislike for Modern/ Avant-Garde Minimalist Design

“It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.”
       ~John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice II

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Disclaimer: This blog may be quite offensive to some people. Read at your own expense. 

Yesterday, a few of my friends and I randomly met up and had a really good time. Despite of having a bottle of a Green-Apple-flavoured Smirnoff Vodka present, I daresay announce that it was a rare wholesome experience. You could say, the absence of drama greatly helped. We were all just there laughing, and talking about random stuff such as video games, our lives, school, boring classes, chemistry, arts… Heck, I even talked to them about poetry even though I know perfectly well there is going to be some mad bashing in the end. It was really fun and words are just not enough to describe it. I regretted not bringing my camera, it would have been a really nice Kodak-moment. Not being overly sentimental or anything, but like I said, it just one of those rare wholesome moments which is best left unforgotten and sealed inside a frame. 

 
This baby sadly failed to get me drunk.

In the middle of our fun day activity, we got into a discussion about furnitures. Yes, furnitures and no, IKEA was not a part of it. A friend of mine had these stacks of Azure magazine on his shelf and the nerd that I am, couldn’t help but leave it alone. We flipped through the pages and saw a heck load of modern interior designs. I admit, they were captivating with those flashy and futuristic designs. And yet, they are not something I would want in my future home.

“Minimalist Design” is the coined term which two of my friends used. Both of them had a mutal fanaticism for it and being the rather Renaissance-Romanticism  fanatic that I am, I begged to differ from their point of view. True, minimalist design is efficient because it only contains the things “everyone needs” such as a bed, a shower area, a kitchen and a living room: the less clutter, the better. But for me, it just looks so cold and uninviting. As far as I can see, these furnitures are works of art reduced to the minimal level. While flipping through the pages, I remembered this quote from Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club:

You buy furniture.  You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life.  Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you’re satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you’ve got your sofa issue handled.  Then the right set of dishes.  Then the perfect bed.  The drapes.  The rug.  Then you’re trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you. 

These IKEA furnitures are modified to fit any modern day man’s and woman’s needs. But you have to admit, there is just too much striving for perfection and consistency in them. They’re just too rigid-looking and completely void of emotion. Then again, isn’t this what modern life is truly about? To have this efficiency and complete this striving towards perfection? The question, nevertheless is this: is it really right to have these passions and emotions which make us human be thrown away just so we can live in this modern age as efficient and perfect droids?

 
Minimalist Interior Design of The Modern-Day Bedroom from Azure Magazine

 The Victorian writer John Ruskins once wrote “men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions“.  Life is not pefect. We, humans, are far from it. And as much as we want to have a perfectly less cluttered life, there will always come a time when a piece of “garbage” will magically appear out of nowhere. Without these clutters or garbages, we would feel less human. Furnitures are important parts of our daily lives for they reflect a part of who we are and what we have become. As the cliche says, “home is where the heart is” and ridding the home of these “clutters” is like ridding the home of a heart. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like clutters either. I mean, who does, right? Nevertheless, these clutters are an essential part of our being human. Emotional breakdowns, depressing moments, and agonizing experiences- help shape our identity. By overcoming these struggles, we prove to ourselves our worth, that we are not emotion-free droids who can live for endless of years without feeling anything. 

 A Photo of Mia’s Livingroom from Cashmere Mafia, I need spaces to be occupied with furnitures like this one.

 
Well, this is just my opinion of this so-called Minimalist Design. Think of me as an overly passionate individual but really, that’s who I am. I don’t like clutters but I need them because they teach me to better appreciate simple things such as having a nerdy conversation about furnitures with a few friends while shots of Vodka are being passed around like there’s no tomorrow. We are all born human and for me, I’d rather live like one than reduce myself to a cold and efficient droid.

 That is all.

Adieu.