hey snowflake
i can???t really speak on minimalist music. and i will preface this by saying this is my opinion on architecture, (this shit gets argued back and forth over years and years in books, lectures, and debates) much of what i am going to say now also must be understood in context of post-modern architecture. most importantly ideas of semiotics, and the introduction of deconstructivist (i???m certainly no expert on deconstructivism so anyone who wants to help here can) philosophy into architecture. i.e. building as sign or structure as ornament. see robert venturi or peter eisenman for examples
minimalist architecture has very little to do with space beyond the immediate impact of the space itself. space is non-representational. minimalist architecture is not interested in finding meaning within itself. nor does it try to convey information or a message. a building does not have credits, subtitles, or labels like pictures in a gallery. a building is a building. as in minimalist art the goal of minimalist architecture is to collapse the time of impact of a work (both physical and emotional) to the immediate, art pursued this goal by distilling form and material into an essence that radiated affect through unmediated presence.
basic architecture is made from: material , structure, construction, bearing and being borne, earth and sky; space which includes: materiality of walls, light, air, odor??? buildings can have a beautiful silence with warmth, sensuousness, composure, self-evidence, durability, presence and integrity. that is a building being itself, not representing anything, just being.
minimalist architecture does not form preliminary images of the building and adapt them to the assignment, but by endeavoring to answer basic questions from the location of the given site, the purpose, and the building materials. only by answering these basic step by step questions posed by site, purpose and material do structures and spaces emerge which possess the potential of a primordial force that reaches deeper than the mere arrangement of stylistically preconceived forms.
i am too lazy to re-visit this mess and make sure it is clear, sorry if it is incomprehensible. too make up for it one last gift. i know you like poetry so much snowflake i dug up an old sketch book where i had copied down a portion of a poem ???bouquet of roses in sunlight??? by wallace stevens.
Say that it is a crude effect, black reds,
Pink yellows, orange whites, too much as they are
To be anything else in the sunlight of the room.
Too much as they are to be changed by metaphor,
Too actual, things that in being real
Make any imaginings of them lesser things.
