The idea of “minimalism” began to gain traction in the late '60s and '70s, when it described the work of fine artists like Donald Judd, Robert Ryman, Agnes Martin, and others whose work was very spare. The British designer John Pawson—we'll look at one of his spaces shortly—is perhaps the godfather of this architectural and interior genre. The release of his 1996 book, Minimum, was a watershed moment for the movement. He called his rooms “the excitement of empty space.” How's that for a Zen declaration?

I actually think it's a bit harder to be a great maximalist. You'd think you'd be freer when allowed to mix styles and periods. But, done wrong, it's just a chaotic mess. To quote the Divinyls, there's a fine line between pleasure and pain. And dare ye not forget the pithy expression “Sometimes an embarrassment of riches is just an embarrassment.”

One of the greatest maximalist rooms of all time is a collaboration between two of the most stylish men of all time—Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. That's their legendary Paris apartment below. Of course, each object in the room, from the Fernand Léger painting The Black Profile (1928) to the Jean-Michel Frank sofa to the African artifacts and Renaissance-age bronzes, is worth more than my whole house. But the combination of all these perfect items mixed perfectly together is pretty much, well, perfect in every way. It requires some serious retinal energy to explore it, but man, it's worth it.