The works below come from across disciplines.

Adolf Loos. Ornament and Crime, 1910. An essay arguing that ornament made objects obsolete within three years and the modern ornamentalist was a cultural laggard. It established the case that undecorated objects endure where decorated ones date.

Shaker design. A religious community's furniture, architecture, and daily life. Objects are austere, built for use, organized by the principle that every object has a designated place. Beauty arose from utility.

Vitsoe. An English furniture company that has manufactured Dieter Rams's furniture systems — three products — since 1959. His principle: less, but better.

John Pawson. Minimum, 1996. An architecture defined by absence. Bare walls, single materials carried across surfaces, no visible hardware. The principle: an object is finished when subtraction stops improving it.