The Architecture of Happiness

This is a review of an interview with an author of a book that I haven't read yet, that was published in a magazine I'm not going to renew.

The magazine is Dwell, which began well, and I've been subscribed since the beginning, but lately it's gotten fatter and fatter with ads for products that advance none of Dwell's so-called editorial objectives but the aesthetic part - which is the most shallow and easiest.  However, they do manage a few successes, like managing to interview Alain de Botton about his new book, The Architecture of Happiness.

I'm on the fence whether to order this, because de Botton so closely aligns with my own philosophy that I'm not sure I'd learn something.  The amount of time sitting in the choirbox is time I could be using to advance my own objectives.  But I thought I'd better document it, just so y'all know where I stand, and in case I run across it in future and have forgotten what I thought.

A couple of money quotes:

I am generally not a fan of Daniel Libeskind or Zaha Hadid because my life feels kind of how their buildings look, and I don't want more of that.

I think there is, generally in society, a tedious overemphasis on the future and on things changing...So if you read an interiors magazine, it will say what's hot this month.  A month is such a short time span...Many things have worked well down the ages, and we should not reinvent the wheel.

I think architecture has bought into a 19th-century idea of romantic artist as rebel, as someone who stands against his or her society, who does everything different, who might be hated at first then gradually loved, like van Gogh.  Though that may be true to some extent, it is not true to the extent that architecture schools suggest that it is.  It think it leads many architects down the wrong path, toward unhappiness.

It is not literally a book about how architecture can make you happy.  It is about how buildings can be repositories for certain values and attitudes to life that we can find attractive and might associate with happiness.

I suspect I really shouldn't address any of these further, as I agree entirely too much with the sentiments.  But I do wonder if our little cottage with the picket fence counts, as one of those architectures associated with happiness.  It certainly lifts my heart at the end of every long day, to steer round the giant tree and see this adorable little house, and think, 'that's MY house.'  I wish the same feeling for everyone.

Comments

[Preston]

Sarah,
I understand where you're coming from, which is kind of what I was thinking with a post on my blog a little bit back on The Happy New House(http://jetsongreen.typepad.com/jetson_green/2006/11/good_architectu.html). A comment mentioned this book as well.