Are you a maximalist or a minimalist? - Telegraph

Are you a maximalist or a minimalist? - Telegraph

It’s the most basic of all interiors questions: decorated, or plain? Busy or empty? Traditionally, your preference has depended on when you were born. My parents, who cut their design teeth in the maximalist early Seventies, retain a penchant for patterned wallpaper and deep-pile carpets.

My own taste, on the other hand, was honed in the Nineties by the clutter-allergic Japanese outlet Muji.

But what does the current generation prefer? The jury still seems to be out – maximalism and minimalism are both in vogue. Two new houses, a mile apart in east London – 22 Bateman’s Row and House of Hackney – offer proof of this. Yet I suspect they divide opinion like Marmite.