[appreciatorBus]

I am skeptical this is the origin of modern decor. The trend away from ornamentation, toward simplicity, flatness, etc in design goes back several generations and transcends interior design.

If the thesis was true, we'd expect rich people who will never be compelled to move against their will, or to move into less space, would prefer cluttered homey interiors, and poor people would prefer sparse & modern. In reality, the biggest boosters of modern decor are rich people.

[analog31]

Here's the story that made sense to me: In the pre industrial age, visible ornamentation was symbolic of a craftsman's skill and attention to detail, when you couldn't inspect the invisible aspects of a product. For instance a violin has an ornately carved scroll, and features such as the "bees sting," whereas you can't take it apart to see if the neck mortise is precisely fitted. It is one of the few pre-industrial-age products whose aesthetics have not changed much.

Today, those features are no longer necessary, and we look for other measures of quality in products -- for better or worse.

I grew up in a "midcentury modern" house, and my family lives in one today. I find the modern decor to be comforting because in my case it reminds me of home. My mom claimed that the sparse decor was easier to maintain, for instance: "There are no knick-knacks to dust around." Truth be told, the house also happened to be available during a very frothy market, and my spouse would have chosen something more traditional.

It's also claimed that the simpler decor works in smaller houses.

We were not rich. The MCM houses in my 'hood, including ours, are certainly not clutter free, yet still feel pleasant and comfortable.

[AJ007]

What are we talking about here? I didn't read the full article but I looked at the synopsis at the top: "Striped patterns, flickering lights, bright glare, and crowded visual environments such as supermarkets"

With the exclusion of striped patterns, this just sounds like a typical over lit commercial environments, probably overhead fluorescent lights, maybe lights and screens running at different refresh rates. That has nothing to do with home decor of any era or culture.

Also I'm guessing the acoustics are consistently horrible in these environments too. Air quality probably sucks too.

[tayo42]

People are responding to the title. Which I think is a bad summary. It's more like modern lack of design like the quote points out

[analog31]

Indeed, I'm a musician and the acoustics of most modern commercial environments suck.

[appreciatorBus]

With all due respect, if you bought a house during a frothy market, and you use words like “mid-century modern, you are 100% part of the elite class, even if you don’t consider yourself rich. Maybe you are part of the top 10% instead of the top 1%, but that top 10% or 20% is exactly the class I was referring to.

[analog31]

Sure, and today, it's like if you can buy a house at all.

Probably what makes the house less cluttered is that the elite class can afford to throw things away.

[tayo42]

Keeping your house clean and neat is elite? I guess I'm elite lol finally.now what do I do about those bills?

[appreciatorBus]

TBF most ppl reading/posting on HN are part of the elite.

Elite doesn't imply "more money than I know what to do with" it simply means being closer to the upper end the of income and/or wealth distribution, or failing that, being part of some cultural generation that gives you more influence than the average bear, i.e. journalist, university prof etc. The cutoff for being in the 20% of household income in the US is $175K. From what I understand that's one entry level FAANG income.

[mghackerlady]

I (, at least for my sanity, want to) believe the average HN user isn't working for a FAANG. It seems most are either hobbyists or work at a startup in some way

[mghackerlady]

they could be a fellow prole with an eye for design. We exist :)

[WillAdams]

Only the rich can afford to own nothing/exert effort to have empty space without consequence.

Ordinary folks when presented with an object have to perform a mental calculation over the cost/inconvenience of storage vs. disposal and if wanted again, replacement.

[fcarraldo]

The rich also can afford to keep their minimalist modern spaces clean and clutter-free, through paying staff. These environments tend to look awful when not tended to continuously because a single out-of-place item is so clearly visible.

Cluttered old homes with lots of things all over the place make it a bit less jarring when there's a stack of work left out on a table.

[tpm]

> Cluttered old homes with lots of things all over the place make it a bit less jarring when there's a stack of work left out on a table.

that's wrong: my minimalist (in looks, not in equipment) all white kitchen looks completely fine even after a dinner party, because even then it doesn't look full, dirty or cluttered. The old one (and it wasn't that old, only there were more and darker colors and lines and objects) decidedly didn't. The art of designing modern spaces lies in the ability to make the space visually appealing (in my case minimal) while still able to function correctly. Too often the designers and their clients forget about the practical aspects.

[elf25]

Rich is a mindset. My kitchen has three spatulas. One i bought when i moved out, mom’s and grandma’s. I don’t NEED three but can’t afford to throw two away. Rich see two extra and toss two because it’s just a damn spatula and they KNOW that if they ever need two, they can afford to run out and buy one. Now expand that thought process to everything you own. Declutter becomes easier.

[tpm]

Or you can build enough cupboards to stash away three generations of cooking utensils and no clutter will be visible. But that too demands a bit of investment in terms of money and room space.

[ffaccount2]

I don't get it. Why did you buy a third spatula, if you consider it a significant expense (i.e you can't replace ones you have if they break), and you already have two.

[mghackerlady]

Perhaps they didn't have the other two already. From the phrasing, it seems they bought one when they moved out of their parents house and received/inherited the others

[kakacik]

They are awful to even look at, IHMO. Cold, sterile, tells something about people living in such fugly soulless places.

Which is fine to be honest, its nice to see clearly the type of person on the other side of the table, no need to dig through empty speech clutter for clues. But impressive it is not.

[snozolli]

Only the rich can afford to own nothing/exert effort to have empty space without consequence.

Reminds me of the reason that grass yards exist: to show the world that one can afford land for the sake of owning it, rather than for growing crops.

[pooploop64]

Lawns are for much more than just flexing. It's an outdoor part of your property which is flat and open enough to use for various activities and purposes. I don't know where people get such a cynical idea that this is THE reason anyone has lawns.

[jmbwell]

Yeah this is all very regional too. Row houses in London and brownstones in New York or whatever won’t have front lawns as a function of density, but may have back yards or gardens, which may or may not be a function of producing your own food, which is all tied up in different experiences of war, while certainly countryside estates are for form more than function, while post war housing in the midwestern US was in part a build-on-your-lot market with houses literally ordered from a Sears catalog…

There’s definitely more to the story and there are myriad factors.

[nly]

I live in a London terrace, originally built circa 1900.

There's plenty of evidence the rear gardens were used for growing food and drying laundry back then

Children would also play there where they could be seen from the kitchen (which was always in the rear), rather than playing in the road (as much)

Rear gardens also served as a space where you would converse with your neighbour. Typically fences between neighbours were low and wire (tall 6ft wooden fences came later)

The other thing is the only toilet in a 4 bedroom property would also be out there, as an outdoor WC, accessible from outside

I doubt much read space was reserved for lawn back then

[throw0101a]

> but may have back yards or gardens, which may or may not be a function of producing your own food, which is all tied up in different experiences of war

The neighbourhood of "Cabbagetown" in Toronto is so-named because yards were not used for 'ornamental' plants:

> Cabbagetown's name derives from the Irish immigrants who moved to the neighbourhood beginning in the late 1840s, said to have been so poor that they grew cabbage in their front yards.[2] Canadian writer Hugh Garner's novel, Cabbagetown, depicted life in the neighbourhood during the Great Depression.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabbagetown,_Toronto

[jyounker]

Sears stopped making homes in 1942. They were strictly pre-WWII.

[asdfasvea]

Wouldn't a non-grassy flat and open area serve the same purpose?

[blipvert]

Not sure that I’d want to lie down with a book on a slab of concrete.

[mghackerlady]

Doesn't have to be concrete. Could be clovers or something

[inigyou]

One set of my grandparents had an expansive, well-cared-for yard with a swing, arches with climbing plants, secret little gravel paths through the trees lined with mosaic tiles featuring the likenesses of their grandchildren, a picnic table, a patio with a barbecue, and so on. I think if you want to have a yard like that, it is a fine hobby. But most people do not. Most people just have a grass rectangle that is a liability. My father has lived in the same house for 15 years and has never used the back yard except as throughfare and has never used the front yard for anything. You can't even see it yard from outside because of an eight-foot-tall fence. All he does is mow it - what's the point of that? It's pure liability. And I think this is how most people's yards are. And that's silly.

I've lived in a few row houses with fully paved outdoor areas. I don't really see the point of that either, but at least it doesn't require regular maintenance so it only has to be occasionally useful to come out ahead.

[mghackerlady]

I think prev was talking about the origins of the grass lawn as we know it today and not the concept of having a lawn itself. The specific kind of lawn grass we have is directly a result of it being a pain in the ass to grow iirc

[cucumber3732842]

Lawns are for where you want to put a patio but can't because some boomers 30yr ago decided that was bad and needed punitive permitting to make it not worth it.

[throwaway7783]

A dirt yard is sufficient if it was to show off land. Grass is not required

[mhurron]

It wasn't just showing off land. It was showing off you had land that was completely unproductive and could even afford staff to maintain this completely useless plot. It's why they became increasingly large and ornate gardens.

It then took this association with rich and better and was used in the US to denote affluent and therefore segregated housing developments.

[cucumber3732842]

You see random farm houses and country estates with acres of field that get nothing but mowed they're essentially preserving resale value.

Generations ago those field would have been allowed to grow over because they could be cleared again on a whim.

These days you need six figured of engineering and permitting to clear acreage and ain't nobody gonna do that without a commercial use that can justify it.

[ordersofmag]

The grass is there to keep the dirt in place.

[WhyNotHugo]

The grass proves that it's actually fertile lands, and that there's resources for keeping it growing.

Historically, using land with such properties for grass instead of crops was as sign of wealth, especially for large estates.

[AlotOfReading]

Grass doesn't prove it's fertile before modern fertilizers. Natural grasslands are often resource-poor places that most other plants can't tolerate. We sometimes replace one for the other because our main crops (wheat, maize, rice, sorghum) are all grasses, but e.g. Versailles probably would have had more forests, lakes, or a vineyard if it didn't have the gardens and lawns.

[Retric]

Travel / multiple homes confuse the issue because nobody spends much time on their 5th house they use less than a month per year, so the decoration is mostly outsourced to 3rd parties.

The portion of rich people homes they actually use are often quite cluttered. The simple limitation of needing to walk to a room to use it means spreading out across a huge home gets annoying. Semi public spaces for guests on the other hand can look like hotels because that’s effectively what they are.

[bluGill]

Space is a factor too. I toured the mansion one time a few years back because a friend of mine was remodeling it. The master bedroom was as large as my entire house. That's a single bedroom for the two people planned to live there. I saw it while it was still under construction and so completely unlivable and but you could quickly figure out which parts were intended for the people lived there to live in and which parts were semi-public most of the mansion was clearly public spaces where they would have parties.

[throwaway5752]

This is a false dichotomy. The modern style is a reaction against a distinct and different design aesthetic from what the parent described. Neoclassical, Gothic Revival, and Rococo are more ornamental, but they not cozy or comfortable in the same way.

This being said, the title is accurate to the article but misleading. The subtitle is about "Striped Floors and Flickering LEDs". It isn't modern design, it's specific elements of modern design.

I'd suggest that the striped/patterned floors/LED points transcend styles, and would cause issues even in a more ornate/classical design. Style is individual, and I expect the diversities of brains and thinking patterns means that there is no right answer for what style is best for people.

The most interesting part of the article wasn't really reflective of style, it was visually crowded environments. They used the example of supermarkets, and that seems distinct from a visually rich style like the grandparent comment's home or Neo Gothic cathedrals. Being in a forest is visually crowded, too, but I'd expect it has the opposite effect the study measured. I think the fractal dimension of the detail, if they correlated it with the degree of distress, would be a factor.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Very rich people do prefer cluttered homey interiors. The ideal is plush, showy, old, and ostentatious. This is the saloon at Eaton Hall, owned by the Duke of Westminster, one of the richest UK billionaires from one of the oldest families. This particular room isn't particularly cluttered, but the living spaces really aren't minimal at all.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS0H4Sp...

Minimalism is more of an (upper) middle class thing - doctors, lawyers, architects, software developers. The abstraction and clean lines are cool, rational, aspirational, and controlled.

Middle class people on the artier end of the spectrum are more likely to be maximalist, with bright colours, busy wallpapers, huge shelves of books, plants, and such.

Poor people need a lot of stuff because they have to hoard things in case they break. Mass market products are usually low quality, mass-produced from cheap materials, and not very well made.

Working class spaces are often chaotic, claustrophobic (because literally small), full of mismatched items and general clutter.

There's a particular kind of upper working class chrome-and-glass look which is its own attempt at minimalism, but doesn't quite get there. It's still chaotic, the spaces are disorganised, but it's very, very clean and shiny. Instead of feeling controlled and expensive it feels sterile.

The startup office look is a mix of minimalism with some maximalist stylings. It's supposed to be informal and "fun", but the big spaces are disorienting and loud, and the bright colours and lines are distracting.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

If the thesis was true, we'd expect rich people who will never be compelled to move against their will, or to move into less space, would prefer cluttered homey interiors, and poor people would prefer sparse & modern. In reality, the biggest boosters of modern decor are rich people.

Are you sure? Maybe some of them are, but it's also quite typical of rich people to live in a refurbished 19th century home with ornate mouldings, antique furniture, bookshelves, rugs, paintings, and a large amount of carefully curated "clutter". While working-class people almost universally move towards minimalism when they renovate, with the rich it's much more divided.

[andai]

I saw this comic once, of a big empty hall. "Only the rich can afford this much nothing."

I walked past a bank later and it looked almost exactly the same. (I guess that's where the money is!)

[mghackerlady]

Imagine how big banks would have to be if they were required to be able to store an amount equivalent to amount of imaginary money they store

[yubblegum]

> I am skeptical this is the origin of modern decor. The trend away from ornamentation, toward simplicity, flatness, etc in design goes back several generations and transcends interior design.

You should be. Modernism is an ideological design response: the aesthetics of the machine age and utilitarianism.

OP's opinion is not based on actual design and architecture history and (ironically) appears to be itself an ideological narrative: a posthoc criticism of Modern (yes with cap M) design which itself has its root in conservative reaction against the (asserted, alleged and possibly true) socialist tendencies of the elite social and design circles that gave birth to Modernism. Note, for example, the 'emotional' appeal to long lived in homes, etc.

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20230103-the-historical-...

[inigyou]

I believe in practice yes. It isn't a planned design choice - it's just a practical consequence that if you are moving around a lot, carrying possessions with you has a much higher cost than if you are staying in the same place. You'll be more averse to accumulating possessions. If you are staying in one place, you only have to reduce your possessions when you start running out of space.

[jodrellblank]

“A rolling stone gathers no moss”, you say?

[bluegatty]

'modernism' is a 20th century design concept.

[mannyv]

Modern decor has been this way since the bauhaus. Saying simplicity transcends interior design makes no sense; it is part of interior design.

The repeating patterns on carpet are an artifact of mass production.

[lofaszvanitt]

It is soulless. Flat surfaces, greys and pastel colours everywhere. Brrr.

[smallnix]

Trends, status signalling?

[pishpash]

Ornate and simple alternate back and forth in a reactionary preference cycle in history. We may be in a 'simple' phase but there is a nostalgic backlash happening with pre-digital aesthetics, and as evidenced here.