Product Description

One of the great but often unmentioned causes of both happiness and misery is the quality of our environment: the kinds of walls, chairs, buildings and streets that surround us.

And yet a concern for architecture and design is too often described as frivolous, even self-indulgent. The Architecture of Happiness starts from the idea that where we are heavily influences who we can be, and it argues that it is architecture’s task to stand as an eloquent reminder of our full potential.

Whereas many architects are wary of openly discussing the word beauty, this book has at its center the large and naïve question: What is a beautiful building? It is a tour through the philosophy and psychology of architecture that aims to change the way we think about our homes, our streets and ourselves.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55855 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-03
• Released on: 2006-10-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
With this entertaining and stimulating book, de Botton (How Proust Can Change Your Life) examines the ways architecture speaks to us, evoking associations that, if we are alive to them, can put us in touch with our true selves and influence how we conduct our lives. Because of this, he contends, it's the architect's task to design buildings that contribute to happiness by embodying ennobling values. While he makes no claim to be able to define true beauty in architecture, he suggests some of the virtues a building should have (illustrated by pictures on almost every spread): order combined with complexity; balance between contrasting elements; elegance that appears effortless; a coherent relationship among the parts; and self-knowledge, which entails an understanding of human psychology, something that architects all too often overlook. To underscore his argument, de Botton includes many apt examples of buildings that either incorporate or ignore these qualities, discussing them in ways that make obvious their virtues or failings. The strength of his book is that it encourages us to open our eyes and really look at the buildings in which we live and work. A three-part series of the same title will air on PBS this fall. (Oct. 3)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
While happily reading Alain de Botton's graceful musings about architectural beauty, I was suddenly struck by the photograph of the Edgar J. Kaufmann House in Palm Springs, Calif., designed by Richard Neutra in 1946. I turned the page to see what de Botton had to say about it:

"The bourgeois couples who lived in Richard Neutra's mid-twentieth-century steel and glass pavilions in California may at times have drunk too much, squabbled, been insincere and overwhelmed by anxiety, but at least their buildings spoke to them of honesty and ease, of a lack of inhibition and a faith in the future."

That was all. Odd, I thought. De Botton never points out that this same Edgar J. Kaufmann commissioned the most beautiful private home in America, Fallingwater. He was. Nor, I discovered after checking the index, does he mention its architect, a certain Frank Lloyd Wright. Not once.

There's no obvious reason why the author of How Proust Can Save Your Life and The Consolation of Philosophy should leave out Wright. Perhaps he simply decided to challenge himself, to see if he could manage the trick, just as the French novelist Georges Perec once published a perfectly readable novel in which none of the words contain the letter E. Certainly, de Botton otherwise reveals his usual wide learning, lyrically deployed. He discusses the neoclassical influence of Palladio, the impact of Horace Walpole's Gothic extravaganza Strawberry Hill on 19th-century building in Britain, the austere concrete housing of Le Corbusier (who once dubbed his sterile tenements "machines for living"). But mysteriously, almost tantalizingly, he avoids the vastly influential, world-famous Wright, whose houses are so serenely beautiful to look at and yet almost impossible to live in comfortably -- at least if you slouch, have children or collect anything. Not surprisingly, The Architecture of Happiness is itself a carefully designed book, tightly constructed around the photographs that appear on virtually every other page. (Another mystery: Which came first, the images or the text?) There are pictures of castles, cathedrals, office buildings, private homes, bridges, hallways, windows, chairs, ironwork. De Botton visits a theme park in Japan built to resemble 17th-century Amsterdam, shows us a 30-foot-high obelisk memorializing a beloved pig, interprets the monumental elegance of the Royal Crescent in Bath, and discusses both the early modern pursuit of functionality and the ancient Japanese esthetic of wabi, which "identified beauty with unpretentious, simple, unfinished, transient things."

Throughout, de Botton argues that the buildings we walk by, work in or come home to affect how we feel. They influence our mood, our sensibility, our very character. No one is likely to disagree with this, especially those of us who dispiritedly sink down into our windowless office cubicles day after day or vainly yearn for just one room, let alone an entire house, like those in Architectural Digest. Alas, much of the time we must simply accept what we are given or settle for what we can afford. For at no point does de Botton seriously address the economics of architecture and interior design. Even if you do it yourself, construction of any kind, especially the highly individualized, is almost prohibitively expensive.

This reality, however, doesn't undercut de Botton's essential point: "Buildings speak -- and on topics which can readily be discerned. They speak of democracy or aristocracy, openness or arrogance, welcome or threat, a sympathy for the future or a hankering for the past." In short, "they speak of visions of happiness." De Botton attempts to understand aspects of that happiness by touching on the achievements or failures of particular styles and constructions. He offers us, in effect, a handsome photo album printed on coated stock, augmented by thoughtful, highly polished paragraphs and pensées. Time after time, his descriptions neatly capture the distinctiveness and character of even the most unusual buildings. Admittedly, those who prefer their sentences strictly functional may sometimes judge de Botton's a tad lyrical, just as his mini-essays risk sounding a little gushy. For the most part, though, he keeps his balance, largely through his quiet intelligence, passionate conviction and the charm of a personality lightly tinged with melancholy:

"The failure of architects to create congenial environments mirrors our inability to find happiness in other areas of our lives. Bad architecture is in the end as much a failure of psychology as of design. It is an example expressed through materials of the same tendency which in other domains will lead us to marry the wrong people, choose inappropriate jobs and book unsuccessful holidays: the tendency not to understand who we are and what will satisfy us.

"In architecture, as in so much else, we cast around for explanations to our troubles and fix on platitudinous targets. We get angry when we should realize we are sad and tear down ancient streets when we ought instead to introduce proper sanitation and street lights. We learn the wrong lessons from our griefs while grasping in vain for the origins of contentment.

"The places we call beautiful are, by contrast, the work of those rare architects with the humility to interrogate themselves adequately about their desires and the tenacity to translate their fleeting apprehensions of joy into logical plans -- a combination that enables them to create environments that satisfy needs we never consciously knew we even had."

De Botton concludes his book with an even more heartfelt plea: We must strive to build in a manner worthy of the meadows and woods we are destroying. "We owe it to the fields that our houses will not be inferiors of the virgin land they have replaced. We owe it to the worms and the trees that the buildings we cover them with will stand as promises of the highest and most intelligent kind of happiness."

Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
Alain De Botton, author of How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Art of Travel, and Status Anxiety, among other books, takes a humanistic approach in Architecture of Happiness and explores the ways in which our built environment affects us. He occasionally overindulges in florid prose, but critics agree that his more general observations of architecture are sound and interesting, if not entirely novel. The average reader will find much of interest in the broad range of eras, places, and styles that de Botton discusses. Well-placed photographs illustrate each point in the text. The book is so visual, in fact, that the BBC is making a three-part television series based on it, to air on PBS this fall.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Couldn't wait to read it!
I'm a big fan of Alain de Botton's writing, so when I saw that his newest book, "The Architecture of Happiness" would not be released in the US until October 2006, I ordered it directly from Amazon.uk. I read it in two or three days and was not disappointed. Botton has a great way of connecting the writings and thoughts of the great minds of world civilization to everyday human experiences. In this case, to the kinds of buildings (public and private) we build or aspire to build, or conversely, tolerate and settle for. The book is amply illustrated. As nice as these photographs and illustrations are, Botton's writing is so precise and illustrative in its own right that the illustrations are not always necessary.

In contrast to "The Art of Travel" and "The Consolations of Philosophy", Botton's new book does not rely on quotations from ancient and modern philosphers and theorists to make its points. Quotations are few, but apt. In compensation, though, I feel Botton is exposing the reader more directly to his own thoughts, observations, and assessments. He is less melancholic than in his earlier works; also, less clever and cute. He's as interesting as ever; just more authentic, exposed, and confident in his own voice. As I was reading I found that the sentences I wanted to underline were mostly Botton's own, not those of someone he was quoting. One of these should give you a good idea of where this book will take you: "We arrange around us material forms which communicate to us what we need--but are at constant risk of forgetting we need--within. We turn to wallpaper, benches, paintings and streets to staunch the disappearance of our true selves." (p. 107)

It's hard to remain a sleepwalker after reading one of Alain de Botton's books. An they always bear re-reading. (A sticker on the cover of the book identifies "The Architecture of Happiness" as the inspiration of the TV series "The Perfect Home." I hope it's a show that gets picked up in the US or comes out on DVD.)

The Responsibility of Creation
To read De Botton is to go on a journey to places at once unexpected yet familiar; for example, one point is supported by reference to a diagram of nose shapes and sizes. His books teach rather than exposit; they do not lack for a direct thesis--they make arguments and reach conclusions. In this book on architecture the point is made that we have a responsibility to create something that is worthy of the natural surroundings that will be altered by the creation. We have the ability and resources to transcend mere engineering concerns and the argument is made in this book that we have a duty to do so.

Obviously we cannot live the modern life stuck out in a meadow, no matter how beautiful the scenery--but our author argues that is equally difficult (or pointless) to live in a community of soulless boxes, that architecture which fails to honor aesthetic ideals is a failure even if it keeps the weather out. Good architecture is the result not of adherence to classical ideals, budget measures or engineering goals but of a balance achieved among the almost infinite range of available architectural choices.

The author understands that in order to bring his reader to an appreciation for balance in architecture that he must provide a context--he has to demonstrate when things are out of balance. De Botton excels in providing just the right amount of history, pictorial evidence, contemporary example and discussion--in fact, his presentation is itself artfully balanced and perfectly suits his theme. There may be disagreements about the thesis; however, I think that the quality of the writing is worthy of any superlatives. Anyone familiar with Michael Palin's travelogues knows that they can't be missed regardless of the destination--Mr. Palin is unfailingly respectful of tradition but never misses an opportunity for a witty remark. So likewise are Mr. De Botton's books. Regardless of his chosen subject, he has earned my trust--I'll read whatever he chooses to print.

Highest Recommendation

Erudite, colorful, delightful!
[Notabene: this is a review of the Dutch translation of this book.] I have read only one book by Alain de Botton so far, namely his eminently readable but highly imaginative and evocative 'The Art of Travel'. I was so enamoured by that particular book, that I highly anticipated his 'The Architecture of Happiness', and bought it without any doubts as what to expect (and so should anyone else who loved his 'The Art of Travel, I believe ;-)
This book is - to my eyes - a pure little gem of often seemingly simple and evident (so often a sign of greatness), but at the same time deep insights into the ways in which architecture reflects (and influences) all of our grandest - and at the same time all of our smallest - aspirations, ideas, hopes, wishes and pleasures. Reading 'The Architecture of Happiness' is ever so often (like his 'The Art of Travel') an 'Aha-Erlebnis': to your feelings and experiences, when reading his book, Alain de Botton's insights and observations could only be so, as it were :-)
For example, one of the author's most important observations comes about a quarter on the way, at the end of the second chapter. Forming the basis for the rest of his discourse, is his central statement (in fact his main conclusion) that [NB: following is my own, probably not very accurate translation from the Dutch translation!] "every designed object will give an impression of the psychological and moral standards it upholds", going on to say that "designed objects and architecture essentially tell us about the way of life that would be most appropriate in their vicinity. They tell us about the moods they would like to encourage and strengthen in their users. Except that they keep us warm and that they offer us practical support, they also stimulate us to be a certain kind of people. They speak of certain ideas of happiness." In other words, de Botton stresses the 'values' that buildings propagate, and it is his belief that discussions about 'fitting' architecture should center more around this issue of values (the ways that architecture speaks to us, stimulating and encouraging us), than about any "strictly visual aspects", making the goals of our discussions about what is 'fitting' architecture much clearer.
To understand why we love a certain architectural style more than another, we need to understand the psychology behind taste (which is based on psychological needs), thus de Botton. He furthermore stresses the need for a deeper understanding of the many different 'esthetical virtues' (a direct consequence of those psychological needs), to help us in our discussions about 'fitting' architecture.
Anyhow, in this book the author displays his enormous gift of relating - in colorful, sometimes almost poetic, prose - all kinds of economical, political, social and artistic developments to architecture, connecting them - interlaced with delightful humorous observations here and there - with philosophical thoughts and associations about the ways architecture taps into our values and emotions (what do we 'feel' or 'need' when experiencing specific forms of architecture?), thereby opening up new and delightful insights into the deep relevance and connection of architecture to ALL of us ...
Well, all of this doesn't help any would-be buyer or reader much concerning the actual 'contents' of this book from 'chapter to chapter, paragraph to paragraph', but anyhow, that would only spoil all the fun for any future reader of this delightful book. I would like to say: please, do yourself a favour and buy this book from Alain de Botton, and let him take you on an interesting, wonderful journey, a sort of 'philosophically inspired architectural travelogue', from the comforts of your own home, and enjoy it when you also enjoyed, like I did, his 'The Art of Travel'. Anyhow, you will simply be delighted and surprised!