Minimal, tidy, messy, a hoard
Having recently come across Ann Patchett’s article in the New Yorker “How to Practice” about the emptying out of a home following the death of a loved-one, has got me contemplating on the role that emptiness, order and tidiness has in architecture.
These are of course a vast subjects, that could lead to an extensive history of egocentrism in the subject, as well as themes of control and erasure that implicitly belie many minimalist tendencies - see for example, the prison cell or the monk’s sleeping quarters. Tidiness and emptiness, at least in the West, are themes that are often also associated with wealth and exclusivity - the hoarded stash, collected in the home in messy piles everywhere, is not a concern when one has enough liquidity to buy and discard at will.
However, what caught my attention about this article was that the author, Ann Patchett, was not describing the act of tidying up in a lifestyle-aspirational sense, but rather, the way we think about the objects that surround us is a process that is learnt, and as such, the view of the things around us can shift at any time. The stories we attach to items, such as who gave us what and when, where did that thing come from, who made it and in what kind of esteem are they held - these stories are all retold in varying contexts and as such, they change. Patchett describes a moment when she decides to give away her collection of twelve champagne flutes that she digs out from the back of a cupboard; when those flutes were bought, she imagined she would’ve been the kind of person to host twelve people in her home, each wanting champagne at the same time - but now, she clearly was no longer that person, and in fact, never had been. The collection of flutes became a means to create a version of herself that she actually wasn’t, and no longer aspired to be.
As an architect, I encourage clients to think carefully about the items that matter most to them, and the stories that objects and moments have acquired. Together we can discuss how best to frame these items for their use of contemplation, be they small trinkets, large machines, or functional items. In picking out what is relevant and important, a discussion inevitably emerges regarding longevity, usefulness, and aesthetics - yet I always find such concerns are highly personal, and contingent on several extremely individual concerns.
The effects of a tidy environment are reflected in our own behaviours - a tidy environment is conducive to a reduced heart-rate, slower breathing, and a generalised sense of well-being. But what counts as a tidy environment, and what counts as mess? And when does mess become hoarding? Whereas minimalism can be clearly defined, as both a style and an appearance - the absence of deliberate placement of colours, objects, materials in a space - It’s rare that two people agree on what counts as messy, and what counts as tidy. Where does the threshold exist for when messiness becomes a problem; what does it look like?
Hoarding as a pathological condition affects between 2 and 6 percent of people, and is surprisingly difficult to define, as it is subject to visual assessment, which can always be contested. As such, it is in part an aesthetic problem, as described by Rebecca Folkoff in her book on the subject “Possessed”. To try and mitigate misunderstandings regarding the amount of clutter in a space, the Clutter Image Rating (CIR) was developed by researchers Randy Frost and Gail Steketee, and published in the Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioural Assessment in 2008. This pictorial scale contains nine equidistant photographs of severity of clutter representing each of three main rooms of most people’s homes: living room, kitchen, and bedroom, where the first image shows a tidy (but not empty) space, and the ninth image shows a severely cluttered room, piles of objects preventing one from understanding the edges of the room.
The American Psychiatric Association only recently included hoarding disorder as a behaviour separate from OCD, defining it as the “persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions, regardless of their actual value”. But the question arises: who is doing the valuing? Does sentimental value have any currency in such an assessment?
The author Jon Day talks about his own father’s tendencies to hoard in their home growing up, and his changing relationship to it: “the hoard is unique because it’s both a symptom and a manifestation of the psyche that created it. When I was younger, I was embarrassed by my father’s hoard. Now I’m sort of proud of it. It speaks of his eccentricity, the range and idiosyncrasy of his interests, his admirable indifference to cleaning. It’s fecund and generative, if slightly overwhelming, like a work of art, or a stormy sea. In my father’s hoarding I now see a commitment, not to utility or beauty, but to memory, and meanings.”
Clutter Image Rating (CIR): Living Room