Minimalism is for the high minded. I really like things, lots of them, rummaged in boot sales and charity shops

The simplicity of mid-century modernism and minimalism looks increasingly odd in the light of the current economic crisis. Photograph: Wachirawut Priamphimai/Getty Images/EyeEm

‘Imagine no possessions / I wonder if you can / No need for greed or hunger / a brotherhood of man.” When John Lennon died, nine years after writing Imagine, the anthem for minimalism, he was living in a 430 sq metre apartment in the Dakota building in New York. He also owned three other apartments in the block, including one for storage, a large part of which was given over to the temperature-controlled care of his and Yoko’s furs.

But it is minimalism that is expensive now. If we look at the places John Pawson, the British architect generally credited as Mr Minimalism, designs for his private and institutional clients, they look distinctly expensive. Rather like Dolly Parton’s brilliant insight that “it costs a lot of money to look this cheap”, wags could reasonably say it costs a lot to have a house that looks that bare.