The Principles of Simplicity

written by Friedrich Achleitner


At the very beginning I would like to make a remark: the simple as such probably does not exist at all but there are, without doubt, many simplicities, and some of them might be, even, very complicated. Simplicity stands always in relation to complex phenomena and it is only possible to define it starting from these premises. 


In Austria, especially in Vienna, the architecture is under the pressure of aspiration towards simplicity, at least from the times of Emperor  Joseph II. an enlightened and reform-prone monarch, the son of Maria Theresa. As the opposite to the luxury of Baroque society the simplicity as a civil virtue, as the quality of reason is put forward. So simplicity represents also one aspect of the Modern Movement. Two ideas are here confronted: a universal, hierarchic, absolute principle where every single person and each object possess their set place and the modern, poly-centric and mobile, scientific one that is being permanently changed by the man’s power of mind and of the reason.