“We favor the simple expression of the complex thought. We are for the large shape because it has the impact of the unequivocal. We wish to reassert the picture plane. We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth.” - Mark Rothko

TRUTH: What can architects learn from artists? Rothko's large scale abstractions teach us the power of visceral experience. For Rothko and others, art is made as much by the painter as it is by the viewer. It is a sensory, ever changing dialog. The best architecture also engages in a sensory dialogue at scale. It surrounds us, it impact is unequivocal. ‘Flat’ forms for Rothko do not allude to something other. They move away from illusion and engage in a universal way. In architecture this sensory dialog incorporates space, light and material. It must speak to everyone moving beyond metaphore toward a visceral universal experience.

Rothko's work was in many ways a summary of the trajectory from the early 1900's (Kazimir Malevich, Black Square, 1915) but he reintroduces the idea that paintings can be emotive. Other artists have been seriously engaged in this work of revealing 'truths', but perhaps none more seriously than Robert Irwin.

HERE AND NOW: Irwin, unlike many of his contemporaries, operates on the edge of failure. He is interested in connecting us physically / experientially / phenomenally through art to our environment and the moment we are in, here and now. 

"...The forms of art and of non-art have always been connected; their occurrences shouldn’t be separated as they have been...."
-Donald Judd (From The Plain Beauty of Well made things by Karen Stein)

PLAIN BEAUTY: I put Judd across the well away from those artists seeking 'truth' in the form of a sensory response. Judd was seeking to eliminate the distinctions between art, engineering, building and architecture...perhaps this is what is meant by a "critique of the sublime". There may be more to do with Duchamp and his "ready mades" than with abstract expressionism (at least by coincidence).
Architects must understand their medium: light, space, color, form and material properties. We must take a hands on approach in our work. We must understand qualities, techniques and embrace experimentation through construction and like Judd, we must understand the plain beauty of well made things.