Doing the simplest thing: the basis of all structure-preserving transformations

Suppose at some stage in a building process there is a certain field of centers. Now you want to transform this field in such a way as to deepen certain latent centers, while leaving the overall structure of the field intact. To succeed you must introduce new structure in the “least” way — that means, in a way which causes the least disturbance to the existing field. To do this, you must choose the simplest thing to do, at every step, because anything more than exactly what is required will tend to complicate and destroy the structure which exists.

Surprisingly, the best one is the simplest: perfectly symmetrical, possibly square, possibly octagonal or round. In any case, not itself complex and irregular. The simple little square leaves things around it more alone. It concentrates its structure inward towards itself, and does not spread out its feeling or its structure into the surrounding landscape. Thus it does not contaminate the wild beauty of the hill.

The appearance of local symmetry in this example is very interesting. That is because the symmetrical structure induces one new center just where it is needed and nowhere else. Asymmetrical structures tend to induce many centers in many places, and so create unnecessary extra structures of centers that interfere with the existing order. In most cases, a symmetrical increment is the one which more leaves the field of centers alone; it is the most relaxed. Often it is the one which preserves structure most profoundly.

The appeal of the light is that there is nothing there except what is required. When I first drew it, Hajo (our executive architect in Japan) thought it was too childish. There was a shocked look on his face. I, too, thought that it was perhaps too childish. Yet childishness is what we see in the St. Gall plan, too.
The result of a process in which, at each moment, the artist introduces the simplest possible thing to extend the existing field, and copes as sparingly as possible with the existing necessities through structure-preserving transformations.

#book/The Nature of Order/2 The process of creating life/17 Simplicity#

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