The japanese clutter photos though are all of older businesses. Older smaller businesses accumulate clutter in the US or western Europe just the same. Just like your home, a small business accumulates stuff - at least tools, cute objects, postcards sent by customers and friends, orphaned stock that has been for sale for 20 years and would be more likely to sell on ebay but the manager is busy, etc. The main reason is probably that they are not a priority to the manager who has been slowing down and feels busy enough with more important tasks. They are not "an aesthetic" - not deliberate. Just usually a product of circumstance.

Occasionally they are an aesthetic but then again in the US also - see for example The Pawn Shop restaurant in San Francisco (where you bring a token object to be admitted).

Man I hate clutter so much. Or I should say, I really like being in a tidy, uncluttered space. But my own house is pretty cluttered. Not sure how that happens.

Isn't it like this with most cultures. People from the outside lock on to something in a foreign culture, idolises it, promotes it as unique and special to an embarrassing level. It completely ignores that each Japanese person is just as unique as any American, Brit, Italian or Dane.

That being said, there is something beautify about the clutter that comes out of Asian cities with their limited space and abundance of people, which allows odd specializations. Though you can fine some of the same beauty in small shops and business in a city like New York, where space is also at a premium.

Clutter is really beautiful. I wish there was a tutorial on how to design cluttered interfaces. Everything is about minimalism nowadays. I like how in some interfaces you don't have a weird icon for deleting things, you just have "del". 3 letters are worth an icon.

"How is it that the same culture that reveres minimalism also delights in maximalism, too? "

That temple is a great example of maximalist minimalism. Sure there's great detail, but it's all neatly framed in a simple layout, with a repetitive pattern, etc.

Actually that sums up all the examples. They may be messy in a way, complex, detailed etc, but they're still constrained to simple patterns and layouts (square shelving, etc), so not really maximalism at all, in fact.

Nice article!

> For Morse, the lack of stuff was less a product of aesthetics than of economics. He was frustrated that other critics had failed to consider ‘that the nation is poor, and that the masses are in poverty.’

> By turns reverential and condescending, ideas of Japan’s enlightened design sensibilities swept Western society.

Western colonizers are obsessed with the myth of the noble savage. It’s the exact same treatment Americans gave to natives - oh look how minimal, how simple, how in touch and in tune with nature they are.