ASCETIC AESTHETIC
The monastery acts as a leveling device for mixed income housing in Soho, New York City.
Soho's history as a community for artists living with simple means in large, empty warehouses helped to pave the road for a strengthened fetishization of minimalism and the ideal of the loft apartment. The former residence of Donald Judd displays itself as a pristine art object where things were once made but are now solely observed. Judd's minimal dwelling has become the ultimate symbol of New York luxury living.
The pretensions of minimalism and "austerity chic" is a perversion of an actual meaningful way of living dedicated to spritual enlightenment, self-actualization, self-sufficiency and philosophical inquiry. Products (i.e. apple), furniture (i.e. Mies) and architecture (i.e. John Pawon) exude an aura of restraint and control. They are the indicators of an underlying moral dilemma felt in an extreme form of consumer society.
critic : Craig Konyk