Mart Stam: Against "Furniture Art"

It is nonsensical to talk about residential furnishings produced by the hands of aesthetics of "interior decor," furniture artists, just as it is pointless to suggest to a laborer that he should go to the Riviera for recovery. It is nonsensical because 99 out of 100 of these furnishings are inaccessible to 99 out of 100 people. It goes without saying that these worthless furnishings awaken general interest. They are mostly designed for people who are more or less quite wealthy, and the public sees in them an ideal of prosperity. Just as a laborer, a caretaker, and a low-level clerk yearn for a little house with a garden, and how they then settle for a miniature villa, a miniature salon and dining room, so they wish to see in their furniture an expression of their ideal of prosperity. As a result, the production of furniture pieces occurs on a large scale, yet this furniture only offers an apparent prosperity. In today’s situation, at a time when everyone is engaged in a struggle for survival, when the broad masses of the population can hardly meet their most urgent demands and needs, it is essential:
1. that a type of minimal apartment is established;
2. that in arranging such a minimal apartment, existing old habits are not taken into account, but rather modern ways of living;
3. that this furnishing, completely not corresponding to the bourgeois ideal of prosperity, complies as much as possible with actual needs.
In the coming years, these requirements will be realized, both because the economic conditions are so relentless, and because a minimal apartment is a necessity that cannot be avoided, and on the other hand because the industry is gradually freeing furniture-making from the influence of art and aesthetics.
Creating a minimal apartment is a task that would have been very valuable for the Stuttgart exhibition Werkbund "Die Wohnung," 1927. Namely: it would be necessary to show what is unnecessary and superfluous in an apartment. The industry bears much of the blame for this state. Driven by competition, it brings one novelty after another, without real necessity for these innovations and "inventions." Of course, we rejoice in technical progress; however, anyone who considers every latest technical refinement in their home indispensable gives the impression of a parvenu.
What good are all these innovations and "inventions"? Is the range of their consumers truly that large? Who are these consumers? A huge percentage of people cannot purchase any of these items: they remain a luxury.
Therefore, it is better to abandon the plan for an ideal apartment with ideal furnishings; it will be necessary for us to direct all our efforts first toward a minimal apartment so that it can be arranged with minimal costs to meet primary needs (sleeping, sitting, eating, cooking) in the best, that is, the least complicated way, while allowing for the daily work (cleaning, etc.) to be done quickly and unobtrusively. Furniture and furnishings play a far more important role here than the means by which we clean and maintain them: simple furniture, regardless of whether it is beautiful or not, and simple means.
The minimal apartment is, of course, primarily and most needed by the poor – but it is very important and welcome for every modern working person as well. The modern working person simplifies their requirements regarding housing and living, and addresses their housing issue by casting aside outdated requirements rather than setting forth new ones. The simpler and quicker they can perform the necessary tasks to maintain existence, the more enjoyable it is for them. They certainly do not need a cellar storage (a remnant of a medieval castle) in their home today when transport allows for central storage. No laundries, since mechanical laundries and drying facilities can accomplish more work in less time. That these laundries ruin clothes? Well, in any case, it is better this way than when washing ruined the housewife.
Why do people eat homemade sweets? If there is no pantry in the minimal apartment where everything can practically be stowed away, that is all the better! For then one does not keep anything unnecessary: neither grandma's furniture, nor souvenirs from one’s own youth; their spouse does not collect incomplete sets or old-fashioned clothes; the minimal apartment is in no way a smaller version of a villa and is absolutely not suitable for those who would like to live in a villa. It is a dwelling for a person with more modest requirements than those of villa residents, for a person of a completely different life stance and opinion, who does not suffer if they lack some of the latest technical devices, who, if necessary, can live without noodle cutters, slicing machines for sausages or bread, or shoe cleaning apparatus even knowing how beautiful these inventions are.
With the excess of inventions in the field of residential furnishings, we find ourselves at a crossroads. In this way, life will not be simplified and domestic work will not be reduced to a minimum; quite the opposite, maintaining the apartment will then demand our full attention; yet looking after the apartment must not be an aim, but rather a part, as small a part as possible, of our life.
To live, for the modern person, does not primarily mean to dwell, and to dwell does not primarily mean for a modern woman to take care of the household and cleaning.
The task will be clearer if we reduce the problem of the apartment, for a moment, to its primary function:
To dwell means: protection against the weather. If the apartment is no longer exclusively protection against the elements, it should predominantly remain so. And it must be possible to clean and tidy it quickly and thoroughly.
Housing setup and technology already make this possible today; however, it must never be allowed that technology and its inventions be put in the forefront, for then we are driven further and aimlessly, without end and without a goal. Then the secondary becomes the principal, our lives lose the necessary simplicity and clarity that we so need to perform our tasks properly in our roles.