The piece Hari written by the travel writer Bruce Chatwin was my favourite thing in the John Pawson exhibition. I remember Pawson’s dreamy white veiled room and his models and razor sharp photographs, but this one page from a typewriter (complete with crossing out) became a looking glass into Pawson’s interiors. It described the Japanese idea of poverty or more correctly, the burden of possessions. And Chatwin’s explanation of the weightlessness of Hari, was like a riddle in which poverty, burden and lightness weave a funny game and make humorous, untroubled prose.
The concept of Hari also appears in the Indian Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition. It is used to summon the gods Krishna or Vishnu. Like its Japanese use Hari is still associated with the removal of burden and translates as ‘he who steals, or takes away’ referring to how Krishna takes away all distress and anxieties.
Chatwin was a client of Pawson in the mid 80’s when he refurbished his 45 square meter apartment. Chatwin was often away and had amassed a lot of stuff, yet his brief to Pawson was for a simpler way of living. Without photos available, a sketch from Pawson’s memory shows a square plan with an entrance corridor running along one side. From here the kitchen and then the living room are entered. At the end of the corridor is simple storage - wardrobes maybe. The bedroom is barely larger than a single bed, but it seems to work. Living space and bedroom have windows so we can guess they are light, and smaller toilet and shower rooms fit into this cellular scheme. Modest yet refined, it suited him.
Pawson, when interviewed in Domus in 2007 mentions that he prefers to have Chatwin write about his spaces than to have them photographed sometimes. The interviewer Federico Tranfa also mentions that Chatwin used to list out his possessions. This was mostly done as an exercise to arrange transportation around the world - with some of his more elaborate lists including a dried chameleon, and the eardrum of a lion.
It is interesting the pause between aspiration and achievement, dream and sensation. Were Chatwin's lists of bizarre artifacts clues of a life he wanted absolution from, calling on Pawson for an architectural exorcism? Without seeing photos or being able to visit the apartment, pure speculation can be the only guide - but it would be fascinating to know how Chatwin lived here.
The minimalist interior has been eschewed by designer stores to mean luxury. Almost in an obscene rehearsal of Hari, a style copied to become a mutant antithesis. Transcendence with a comedown, decadent delirium leading to Hari with a heartache. This makes Pawson's sketch from memory above quite poignant, as a distillation of an uncorrupted concept.