Trends cannot be isolated from today’s social realities

Surely this is not one of those posts that people expect to find in the blog of an architect or interior designer in which they talk about styles, spaces, colors, textures and so on…

This is a post expressing a personal opinion, mine. That of a person, an inhabitant of this planet, who feels the utmost respect for the environment and nature; in short, for what is our home and source of life.

A few days ago I read on a page about architecture and trends that I follow on Facebook the following headline “The new maximalism: when more is more in interior design”, it was an article in English published by a renowned American architect, in which he talked about this new trend, totally opposite to the “less is more” of my admired Mies van der Rohe.

In this article he exposes to the reader this new trend based on “more is more” more color, more texture, more materialities, more decorative elements, … And here is when reading this article my reason collapses….

I understand and defend that architecture and, linked to it, interior design, are two arts at the service of society, that is, which, in my point of view, have had and still have a duty and a responsibility to society.

Just a few days ago, some regions of the Valencian community have been hard hit by a DANA, a meteorological phenomenon that in this area can translate into heavy rains which lead to serious episodes of flooding; a DANA that has appeared after one of the hottest summers in recent years and with alarming rates of drought in our country, I say our country, because it is the closest example and that directly affects me more. However, history repeats itself across the globe. It is more than obvious that we are beginning to suffer the first consequences of human-induced climate change.

The lifestyle of the first world countries is saturating and collapsing the planet’s resources, in addition to the massive production which leads to a massive generation of waste which is turning the planet earth into a veritable landfill.

And just at this moment, when we should be preaching “less is more”, the “new trends”, I love this word created to generate new needs in the buyer, giving rise to an excessive consumerism; they implement or try to implement, this new style that translates into more demand and production with all that this entails: more resources, more waste, more materials, more pollution…. In short, more contribution to climate change.

Probably due to my Mediterranean origins, I am a true lover and defender of visually clean spaces, flooded by natural light, of natural materials, of the purity of forms, of the autochthonous versus the artificial, of the vital and necessary, of white and of those colors that we find on a walk along the sea…..

I think it is time that as consumers we become aware of our actions and our decisions, that we become responsible buyers and developers, and that we ask ourselves if our happiness really lies in owning a house or a magazine interior, or in knowing that with these small decisions we make every day as consumers we are leaving our children, and our children’s children, not a better planet, which would be our duty, but at least a planet where they can live.

I would like to end this very personal entry with a Greek proverb that goes like this:

“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.”

“A society is enlarged when old people plant trees in whose shade they know they will never sit.”

Greek proverb

Davinia Catalá Carrió