The Architecture of Happiness

This book started out making an interesting case. By the end, I was convinced that the author should've gone into poetry rather than architecture. I don't get why he insists on injecting the most verbose depictions of tangentially-relevant concepts into what would otherwise be a brief, albeit fascinating essay on the purpose of beauty in design. Still, I cannot begrudge the quality in the meat that is hidden in the potatoes, and so, 3 stars it gets. Cheers.

This book is a mixed bag. I found some valid points on architecture and how we view it, but I had to dig through an awful lot of pretentious drivel to get it. I have very little patience for philosophy, so that might be part of why I found sections of this tiresome. It's probably something important for anyone in the architectural field to read because it makes you think about your area of study/work, but it needs to be taken with several grains of salt.

I really enjoyed this book. It's fast paced, conversational and exploratory. My favorite parts were the philosophizing about the nature of beauty. For example, de Botton discusses how we subconsciously humanize almost everything we see. We give buildings and sculptures personalities then judge them based on these projected human traits.

He talks about how the buildings and art we find appealing reflect the fulfillment of our desires, not what we are or have, but the ideals we aspire to. Because of this, the context of the viewer and the location of the piece become key contributors to determining its beauty and success. For example, churches should be capable of inspiring feelings of reverence or devotion in even non-religious people. Ornamental architecture has its place, as do the clean lines of modern architecture. In context, each serves a purpose and shouldn't be written off in favor of some non-existant universal ideal style.

De Botton has interesting opinions on how to integrate historical styles with modern buildings and he spends some time critiquing existing architects and buildings based on those standards. He feels that it's important to try to incorporate some of the unique historical aspects of the region's architecture but to also take into account modern needs and to be practical in choices. His approach to bad architecture is basically that it should be treated like any other bad art–get rid of it and start over. At times, there was a definite air of snobbishness about it, for example he takes a pretty broad swipe at all of Tokyo, but I didn't mind it too much. Snobbery can sometimes be productive. Perhaps his destroy and rebuild approach isn't always practical but despite my reservations about his implied methods of implementation, I admire the idealized goal of elevating beauty everywhere possible.

The Architecture of Happiness is written like an essay meant to to raise for discussion both new and old-but-forgotten ideas as well as to inspire us to change and improve our environment. In that, I believe it succeeds.