Minimal, Minimalist, Minimalism Defined

Key Words: Minimal, Minimalist, Minimalism, Environmentally Sustainable, Art, Science

Minimalism started as a trend in art and design in the west. However, minimalist way of living, objects or artefacts have been existing from unknown times. Customarily it refers to art and design, which puts it in a box of a fashion, where a person may not 'walk the talk'.

Minimal is not minimum, but is to go beyond or achieve the best within minimum in living, thought and action. Minimal implies essential; it is not merely simple. It is neither junk or trash nor extravaganza.

Definitions, however, limit the scope of the defined. We, therefore, start with examples, and arrive at our definitions according to our perceptions. There is no formula! However, it may not be out of place here to add Universal Definition of Design by Nature written by Martin Jones, bio-archaeologist.

Let us start with primary and most familiar examples: Water (by Mother Nature) and Food: Roti – 'bread' (home made – by Mom).

Water is one of the minimalist creations by Mother Nature

WATER is fascinating Element: It soft, malleable, takes the shape of a container, always goes down the soil or to meet the sea, in heat vaporizes, moves meekly around obstacles on the way, cuts through rocks, mixes salts-minerals of soils… 70% of our body is water.

But there comes a time, when this taken-for-granted and often ignored element dances Shiva's Tandav of tsunami!

Water in Science

Water (defined as: 'H2O') is one of all the expressions, creations of Mother Nature! As a matter of fact, all her creations – from microbes to mammals, from algae to giant banyan – are minimal events. This sets an example and also a definition of 'minimal'. Mother Nature is our first and the last Guru!

Such tsunamis also happen in civilized societies. Whenever the arrogant and powerful classes / castes exploit and push the lowly – the sea of people – to the brink of subsistence, the waves of tsunami arise. This is the power within 'minimal'!

Roti as food is minimalist act

FOOD: vegetables, roots, tubers, grains, fruits... each of these have their unique taste, flavour and nutrition. They are also revealed by minimal process and in eating them fresh.

But having four meals a day, on full stomach, we can't fancy their tastes and nourishment; we find it ordinary. We become imaginative and add embellishments, decorations, ornaments... new experiments, processes in preparations of food.

There begins a market competition and struggle to make tasty exotic foods. It is just as we try to beautify our body as if... in this extraordinary creation by Mother Nature was incomplete!

Most elementary food is Roti – flat round Indian bread, and its regional variations. It is by now known in many parts of the world. Roti is made of flour of different grains: maize, rice, millet, finger millet, bulrush millet, barley or wheat. Rich Indian biodiversity also offers variety in various grains.

To make Roti all that you need are: Tava - a concave plate of clay or iron to bake, a wooden or metal plate to knead flour, salt, Chulah – hearth – of clay or just three stones, brush wood for fire  and, of course, water. I believed Roti is indeed a 'minimal' food, until I tasted baked maize loaf made by Bhill aborigines.

Henry D. Thoreau in 'Walden' (pp 99-101) writes about bread by Red Indians, which may not be different from maize Roti made by Bhill and other aborigines and peasants in India. Thoreau writes by experiments and experience of Indian bread, not by impressions.

Minimalist maize loaf by Bhill aborigines

Bhill Festival at Mahi River, Kadana, Gujarat

It was three day annual fair during spring on Chaitri Poonam (full moon day: this year on 18-04-2011). Bhills from Gujarat, MP and Rajasthan states had gathered on the white sands on bank of Mahi River among hills near village Kadana.

I camped there for three days and nights in the open (no bed, no sleeping bag) among Bhill families. At night all would sleep around campfires. They get up at an early hour. First the women take bath in the river, and then men follow. As I come out of warm water I felt thousand pin pricks. No sooner the Sun appears the water becomes very cold. After bathing it is time for breakfast.

Adivasi women started to prepare breakfast, before daybreak. They made balls of kneaded maize flour, wrapped each in the leaves of a specific plant and put them in the campfire. By the time bathing is over the freshly baked maize loaves are ready for breakfast.

The taste, flavour and nutrition of the maize loaf were extraordinary. It remained in my memory as unique and only experience of lifetime. And also the memory of their warm hospitality, though I was a total stranger.

Ingredients of maize loaf are flour, salt, river water, wooden bowl, leaves and brushwood fire; that's all. This could truly be called ‘minimal’ and 'environmentally sustainable' food and way of living, both.

'It is Walking, not the Way' — Vatsyayana      

Hunger is basic to body and mind. Food nourishes both, body and mind. Yet we are only custodians of our body and mind. In transplant operations heart is kept alive outside of body by supplying energy. Why boast it is my heart?

Minimal object is possible when one follows minimal 'way of living', which can't be called 'life-style': No compromises.

Ancient flute of bone 30000 ybp (Credits: NYTimes)

 Source: The New York Times

Note: There are number of "minimal" artefacts people use. Bamboo flute is has ancient origine. Archaeologists have discovered 30,000 years old bone flute some time back. I took my lesson on slate. People still take lessons on slate; Rangoli is another ancient example of "minimal" (land) art.Traditional nine yard Sari in India is single piece dress for women, which is a minimal artefact; many do not even wear a blouse. However a bikini, which is displayed on a fashion ramp, is only a minimum object, and must not be mistaken as minimal. In his paintings Raja Ravi Varma uses Sari for his female subjects. Haiku in poetry is indeed minimalist.

Rangoli inscribed on Mumbai's roadside pavement

Swastika in the centre of this image is repeated for ages

  a million times by women in India.

It is believed this action draws Cosmic Energies.

Remigius de Souza | Mumbai
22-04-2011

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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

My lesson on slate (Poem)

(Key words: Minimalist Architecture)

Learning on a slate may not be comprehensible today for the urbanite in a mass education system.

I learnt to write and read “letters and numbers” on a slate with chalk-pencil at primary school at my native village, in Marathi vernacular.

And, I must add, I also learnt “to make things” at home and at paddy and vegetable farms and indulged in many errands in life-sustaining skills, like any other village kids.

The only problem has been, then during British rule and now in the democratic India, the people’s skills and knowledge remain without official recognition.

How does the Taj Mahal relate to the slate made out of ordinary stone?


I learnt a most wonderful lesson early in my life.
It is that from time to time, each time, I wrote my lesson and my homework I wipe my slate clean to rewrite.

No attachment to – no identification with – no memorial out of ego with whatever work done. Each time wipe the ego. Each time internalise the lesson and learning. And make it a stepping stone, in success as well as in failures.

Taj Mahal, or pyramids, or Great Wall of China, or Berlin Wall… all shall perish sooner or later.
Even this blog – this writing – shall perish.
Yahoo already has scraped Yahoo-Briefcase service.
Google is about to remove Google-Pages.
More shall follow.

I don’t know what the western or westernized scholars and pundits have to say about “Minimalist Architecture”, either about building designing or web-designing. But who does talks the thought and walks the talk?

The twenty-first century continues to capitalize on the feudal monuments of the past. It glamorizes them – the wonders of the world – to keep centralized power in the hands of the few, which reaches the global level.
Democracy is but only a new bottle for the old wine of centralized feudal power.

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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Universal Definition of Design

Universal Definition of Design by Nature

While studying, teaching and learning architecture, inside and outside classroom, I was confronted with the word DESIGN, which appeared number of times on every occasion.

There must be several volumes written on design not only in architecture but also on other artefacts, such as arts, crafts, projects and policies, laws and acts by the State etc. And now web design... rockets and spaceships. Their meanings and definitions go beyond the language dictionaries.

Nature, indeed, remains the first guru in all the ideas, concepts, theories, hypothesis, inventions in all the disciplines developed by humans from the beginning of time, until now. Where does the meaning or definition stand?

But when I read the following lines by Martin Jones, bio-archaeologist, I literally jumped, overjoyed:

"In whole organism, randomness structure is uncommon. Everything seems finely tuned by the brutal rigours of natural selection. There are no spare limbs to be found and hardly any dispensable organs. This forced economy of whole organism design has always limited the use of bodily form as an evolutionary timepiece” (‘MOLECULE HUNT: How Archaeologists are Bringing the Past Back to Life’, Penguin, 2002, p. 48)”.

I do not wish to edit or modify this extract.

Examine all artefacts designed by an individual, group, an organization, and even the State – any State, in the context of Environment – Ecology – Energy cost to the whole planet, whether it is Moon / Mars Mission or school curriculum. Don’t simply ‘talk-talk-talk global’ but also ‘act global’, and don’t develop pseudo-development projects.
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Links: (1) Architecture and Biodiversity (2) Architecture of Diatoms (3) Oldie's Secret

Remigius de Souza
24-11-2008

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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved।