Maeda's SIMPLICITY

Obey

On the way to MIT this morning, there were two car accidents that I observed. Fortunately neither accident was fatal for the participants, and everyone seemed to be smiling in spite of their misfortune. A sudden dose of beautiful summer weather does tend to warm people's hearts. Police were attending to their duties of resolving the immediate details of each accident in perfect form.

I passed another car that was in the process of being towed. It was illegally parked in front of the city hall of Cambridge. Two tow trucks were in place to move the single car. Yet again, a fellow from the police was there to attend to the administrative task of the towing procedures.

As I neared MIT I glanced in my rear view mirror, and there it was right behind me—a new Audi A4. Having seen the television commercials for the A4, I was very excited about the idea of their new grille. If you haven't seen it yet, it looks something like this:

Note the wide swatch of dark gray space that sits there as a complete void. What a remarkable statement to have for a car. A plain, unfettered and undecorated space. I marveled at its simplicity when I first saw it on television.

And then reality hit me. The front of the A4 looked different. How come? Because a big license plate was slapped atop the beautiful field of dark gray. Suddenly the pristine design intentions fell apart. Let me help you visualize that:

The A4 was no longer an "Audi A4." It was now a legally licensed automobile. Granted the former would not get you anywhere (aside from within a dealer's parking lot); the latter is what puts the mobile in 'automobile.' Which brings me to the Eighth Law:

Most kinds of art or design falls prey to forgetting that we don't live in a perfect world. Beautiful buildings are designed without the acknowledgement that the street will be cluttered with details that are discordant with the architect's intentions; statues are erected that are violated by all manners of unexpected grafitti or wear in ways that are far from the artist's desire. In the same way that we acknowledge the fact of gravity, we must acknowledge the fact of society. I'm of course not saying that society is artificial, although if that which is artificial can be defined as "made with intention by humans" perhaps it fits. Which reminds me, I never said that I was real.