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Some years ago, minimalism was the hottest trend in interior design, however, that name ceased to constantly ring in everybody’s years. This never meant that Minimalism, as a trend, is over, but that as a trend, it came and went; therefore talking of minimalism in design is not that “hot” any more.

Nevertheless, Minimalism is still with us. Maybe we don’t hear of it that much because time goes by and the need to create more and new isms is imperative, but what Minimalism stands for is still more than contemporary, is current. These are some of the characteristic of this ism:

• Abstraction.
• Economy in language and means.
• Industrial production and standardization.
• Literal use of materials.
• Austerity with lack of ornaments.
• Structural and functional purism.
• Order.
• Elemental rectilinear Geometry.
• Precision in finishings.
• Reduction and Synthesis.
• Simpleness.
• Concentration.
• Façade prominence.
• Dematerialization.

Probably, the main reason for attenuating Minimalism was that it was considered rather cold, and if this had occurred it is mainly because this ism seems to be the exact opposite to baroque art, both of them, are extremes.

The emergence of this trend in interior design can have, at least, one very simple explanation: contrast with the outside word. The first things you see when you step out of your city house are: buildings, cars, advertisements, and thousands of people, all of the previous with different colors, shapes, sizes, etc. The answer to this chaos is Minimalism: order, simpleness, austerity and purism. Yet, many prefer to come back to a cozy and warm place, and that is also perfectly logical.

Transparent glass furniture might be the best ally when trying to achieve a Minimalist style, its simple, transparent, flat and slim. The presence of a clear glass table on a room is not menacing at all, but on the contrary is subtle and suggestive:

On the same page, colored glass is still very useful for an extra effect: reflection; black glass tables

Could we conceive then a piece of furniture where design opposites (Minimalism and Baroque) touch? If the answer to this question is yes then a combination of materials is necessary. In this case, I am going to suggest glass (modern) and wood (classic and basic) coffee table. Here is and example of what a combination as this one can look like:

Of course, in the end, this cannot be described as a minimalist –not at all!- piece of furniture nor as a baroque one and neither as a 100% oriental piece. The only category that I can find to describe this item is “hybrid”. Many may immediately associate this word with biology or biogenetic, etc, whoever, we can find the use of this word in arts as well as literature: Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s (Jerez de la Frontera, 1507 – Sevilla, 1559) “Naufragios” is now studied as literature and considered a hybrid (when in fact the reasons for writing this “relación” was to present it on the Spanish court as an explanation of why the expedition to Florida was an absolute failure, therefore its main purpose was to be convincing, rhetoric). The challenge of this type of texts, now classed as “Crónicas de Indias” was to find a way to describe something absolutely new, things that have never been seen nor described with the absolute lack of any precedents in literature. The creation of hybrids is the result, mixing genres, registers, codes, and using, as Christopher Columbus did in his diaries with mythology, allusions to known literature models and codes.

The hybridness of this text relies in the mixture of discourses: official legal document, the presence of history and medieval historiography, the autobiographic side of the story, the evangelic importance of the narrator, a diary’s rhythm of exposition –that creates the illusion of simultaneousness, and the oscillation in the identity positioning of the narrator (this does not happen, for instance, in Mary Rowlandson Narrative of Captivity).
The value of hybrids is immense, and they are indeed of uttermost interest because it represents a challenge for the ones that want to study where the base components came from and the new effect that their mixing produces.

We may then take the liberty of denominating this unique coffee table as a hybrid. And for the ones looking for new isms we are also going to dare to classify this style as hybridism. It is definitely a coffee table to take into consideration by the rare item seekers.