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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
To kick off the year, I read The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton. It is a book that delves into why we respond to certain types of architecture and design and how the spaces we live in impact our lives.
Complete review at http://chereemoore.blogspot.com/2010/01/ilym-52-books-in-52-weeks.html
Complete review at http://chereemoore.blogspot.com/2010/01/ilym-52-books-in-52-weeks.html
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.
Loved this little introduction to a theory of architecture (primarily in Britain and the United States) which attempts to understand why we need beautiful buildings. It’s not ground-breaking but there are concepts and exercises within it that I think will stick with me.
"We may need to have made an indelible mark on our lives, to have married the wrong person, pursued an unfulfilling career into middle age or lost a loved one before architecture can begin to have any perceptible impact on us, for when we speak of being ‘moved’ by a building, we allude to a bitter-sweet feeling of contrast between the noble qualities written into a structure and the sadder wider reality within which we know them to exist. A lump rises in our throat at the sight of beauty from an implicit knowledge that the happiness it hints at is the exception."
Like the first book that I read by de Botton, I enjoyed this one. I first read On the Pleasures and Sorrows of Work because I heard him give an interview about that one last year. The Architecture of Happiness was the first one that I saw on the shelves of his though, and I finally remembered to put a request through to the library to get this one. It came up as a featured prop in the movie (500) Days of Summer, starring Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and for that reason was given a more prominent placement in bookstores. As an aside, I would recommend the film too.
De Botton has a knack for encapsulating philosophical ideas about broad topics in history in short essays that maintain a loose progression but also stand on their own because each numbered segment of his chapters focus on a single idea and present different musings--some straightforward and factual, others personal and humorous--about the topic.
De Botton also is very skillful with the language. I've been reintroduced to some very compelling words in the essays that he writes and introduced to some new ones as well. I cynically think that he occasionally writes an essay just to incorporate terms of art in it, to give them a new life by hoping his readers will repeat them.
He didn't attempt to cover each subject equally. Some topics only get a few sequentially numbered essays, others receive more. I don't have a quarrel with that. It's just an observation.
I will say that even though each numbered section seems internally consistent, I would be interested to hear if others felt that through rearrangement or deep analysis different contradictions about the ideas regarding architecture would be more prominent. It's such a complicated subject that developing a unified thesis on the topic is a challenge. And I don't think that de Botton intends to do that, but I found myself occasionally thinking, "Hey wait, didn't you say in chapter two, section four that good architecture does this while here you are saying that it doesn't do this?" None of the facts contradict one another in the book, but sometimes the ideas seem at odds. Again, though, just an observation, not a criticism.
The only minor quibble I have with the book is with the illustrations. I think that de Botton or his publishers have agreed to incorporate black-and-white imagery in his books, but I think that the architecture volume is one that would have strongly benefited from color photographs since color is such an important element of design.
Based on my affinity for de Botton's nonfiction and on a friend's affection for de Botton, Proust, or both, I actually bought a paperback copy of de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life, and I've added it to my reading pile. It will be interesting to read about Proust because I've never ready any of his works, and don't intend to ... yet.
Any time I've read de Botton, I've felt like I've been in a better place, whether it's the one he's describing or whether it's just me imagining myself in a clean room having just finished an excellent meal, about a half-hour from taking a nap.
De Botton has a knack for encapsulating philosophical ideas about broad topics in history in short essays that maintain a loose progression but also stand on their own because each numbered segment of his chapters focus on a single idea and present different musings--some straightforward and factual, others personal and humorous--about the topic.
De Botton also is very skillful with the language. I've been reintroduced to some very compelling words in the essays that he writes and introduced to some new ones as well. I cynically think that he occasionally writes an essay just to incorporate terms of art in it, to give them a new life by hoping his readers will repeat them.
He didn't attempt to cover each subject equally. Some topics only get a few sequentially numbered essays, others receive more. I don't have a quarrel with that. It's just an observation.
I will say that even though each numbered section seems internally consistent, I would be interested to hear if others felt that through rearrangement or deep analysis different contradictions about the ideas regarding architecture would be more prominent. It's such a complicated subject that developing a unified thesis on the topic is a challenge. And I don't think that de Botton intends to do that, but I found myself occasionally thinking, "Hey wait, didn't you say in chapter two, section four that good architecture does this while here you are saying that it doesn't do this?" None of the facts contradict one another in the book, but sometimes the ideas seem at odds. Again, though, just an observation, not a criticism.
The only minor quibble I have with the book is with the illustrations. I think that de Botton or his publishers have agreed to incorporate black-and-white imagery in his books, but I think that the architecture volume is one that would have strongly benefited from color photographs since color is such an important element of design.
Based on my affinity for de Botton's nonfiction and on a friend's affection for de Botton, Proust, or both, I actually bought a paperback copy of de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life, and I've added it to my reading pile. It will be interesting to read about Proust because I've never ready any of his works, and don't intend to ... yet.
Any time I've read de Botton, I've felt like I've been in a better place, whether it's the one he's describing or whether it's just me imagining myself in a clean room having just finished an excellent meal, about a half-hour from taking a nap.
This felt--in the best possible way--reminiscent of an assigned reading for a good intro level college class in aesthetics, design, or architectural history. The curious but non-committal could just read the captions and get the gist of it pretty quickly. But if you're interested in architecture (in Western Europe and the United States), this is a solid introduction. Amazingly, he never once referenced Frank Lloyd Wright. This is a feat almost as impressive as Georges Perec's La Disparation, an entire novel that never once uses the letter "e".
In The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton offers a series of musings on what is it that makes a building or object beautiful, and invokes feelings of happiness and pleasure. While the Stoics might argue that architecture and other issues of decoration and design are inconsequential and frivolous, de Botton points out that the reality is that our environment has a profound impact on our mental state and well-being.
But what is a beautiful building? De Botton suggests that good architecture, good buildings “are not simply visual objects without any connection to concepts which we can analyse and then evaluate.” Rather, buildings promote and communicate certain values; they can “speak of democracy or aristocracy, openness or arrogance, welcome or threat, a sympathy for the future or a hankering for the past” (think about what is communicated by a formal and imposing structure vs a “Georgian doorway that demonstrates playfulness and courtesy in its fanlight window”. Architecture and design create an environment which allows for certain behaviours and ideas to flourish; de Botton contrasts the environment created by an impersonal, slightly grimy McDonalds, and the hushed interior of a Gothic Cathedral. The architecture of the latter invites the visitor to contemplate the possibility of Heaven and salvation, the former probably invites cynicism about the human condition. Inside the cathedral, “a range of ideas that would have been inconceivable outside began to assume an air of reasonableness”. We can and do design our environments communicate and encourage the flourishing of certain values within ourselves, certain inner states, to reinforce certain ideals and things we hold dear (which may be lacking in our own lives).
De Botton argues that there is no definitive approach to designing something that is considered beautiful. Applying Palladian principles rigidly does not guarantee a beautiful building. Our social context matters, for one. Wilhelm Worringer argued that a society might switch its preferences between realistic and abstract art based on the values the society assessed it was lacking at a particular juncture. “Abstract art, infused as it was with harmony, stillness and rhythm, would appeal chiefly to societies yearning for calm – societies in which law and order were fraying, ideologies were shifting, and a sense of physical danger was compounded by moral and spiritual confusion…But in societies which had achieved high standard of internal and external order, so that life therein had come to seem predicable and overly secure, an opposing hunger would emerge: citizens would long to escape from the suffocating grasp of routine and predictability – and would turn to realistic art to quench their psychic thirst and reacquaint themselves with an elusive intensity of feeling.” The balance between order and complexity, luxury and simplicity, the stylistic coherence of a building and with its environment and cultural context (think Huis Ten Bosch in Japan) are other factors he highlights.
To de Botton, we can and should do better in designing our environment:
“an investigation of the process by which buildings rise reveals that unfortunate cases can in the end always be attributed not to the hand of God, or to any immovable economic or political necessities, or to the entrenched wishes of purchasers, or to some new depths of human depravity, but to pedestrian combination of low ambition, ignorance, greed and accident…The same kind of banal thinking which in literature produces nothing worse than incoherent books and tedious plays can, when applied to architecture, leave wounds which will be visible from outer space. Bad architecture is a frozen mistake writ large.”
We can and should demand more of architects and not assume that mediocre and ugly architecture is the norm because “man-made beauty has been preordained in to exist in certain parts of the world but not in others; that urban masterpieces are the work of people fundamentally different from, and greater than ourselves; and that superior buildings must cost inordinately more than the uglier architecture which typically takes their place.”
De Botton ends off with this call to action: “We owe it to the fields that our houses will not be the 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 kinds of happiness”
A thought provoking read with plenty of visuals to illustrate de Botton’s arguments.
But what is a beautiful building? De Botton suggests that good architecture, good buildings “are not simply visual objects without any connection to concepts which we can analyse and then evaluate.” Rather, buildings promote and communicate certain values; they can “speak of democracy or aristocracy, openness or arrogance, welcome or threat, a sympathy for the future or a hankering for the past” (think about what is communicated by a formal and imposing structure vs a “Georgian doorway that demonstrates playfulness and courtesy in its fanlight window”. Architecture and design create an environment which allows for certain behaviours and ideas to flourish; de Botton contrasts the environment created by an impersonal, slightly grimy McDonalds, and the hushed interior of a Gothic Cathedral. The architecture of the latter invites the visitor to contemplate the possibility of Heaven and salvation, the former probably invites cynicism about the human condition. Inside the cathedral, “a range of ideas that would have been inconceivable outside began to assume an air of reasonableness”. We can and do design our environments communicate and encourage the flourishing of certain values within ourselves, certain inner states, to reinforce certain ideals and things we hold dear (which may be lacking in our own lives).
De Botton argues that there is no definitive approach to designing something that is considered beautiful. Applying Palladian principles rigidly does not guarantee a beautiful building. Our social context matters, for one. Wilhelm Worringer argued that a society might switch its preferences between realistic and abstract art based on the values the society assessed it was lacking at a particular juncture. “Abstract art, infused as it was with harmony, stillness and rhythm, would appeal chiefly to societies yearning for calm – societies in which law and order were fraying, ideologies were shifting, and a sense of physical danger was compounded by moral and spiritual confusion…But in societies which had achieved high standard of internal and external order, so that life therein had come to seem predicable and overly secure, an opposing hunger would emerge: citizens would long to escape from the suffocating grasp of routine and predictability – and would turn to realistic art to quench their psychic thirst and reacquaint themselves with an elusive intensity of feeling.” The balance between order and complexity, luxury and simplicity, the stylistic coherence of a building and with its environment and cultural context (think Huis Ten Bosch in Japan) are other factors he highlights.
To de Botton, we can and should do better in designing our environment:
“an investigation of the process by which buildings rise reveals that unfortunate cases can in the end always be attributed not to the hand of God, or to any immovable economic or political necessities, or to the entrenched wishes of purchasers, or to some new depths of human depravity, but to pedestrian combination of low ambition, ignorance, greed and accident…The same kind of banal thinking which in literature produces nothing worse than incoherent books and tedious plays can, when applied to architecture, leave wounds which will be visible from outer space. Bad architecture is a frozen mistake writ large.”
We can and should demand more of architects and not assume that mediocre and ugly architecture is the norm because “man-made beauty has been preordained in to exist in certain parts of the world but not in others; that urban masterpieces are the work of people fundamentally different from, and greater than ourselves; and that superior buildings must cost inordinately more than the uglier architecture which typically takes their place.”
De Botton ends off with this call to action: “We owe it to the fields that our houses will not be the 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 kinds of happiness”
A thought provoking read with plenty of visuals to illustrate de Botton’s arguments.
challenging
informative
slow-paced
Like Gombrich's The Story of Art, this is an important book to read. However I would have appreciated more context and history rather than (sorry) a long incoherent diatribe on a few features of architecture.
I liked this book a lot, with the pictures it gave me explanations and I learnt a lot of new things I had no idea about. I usually do not appreciate Alain De Botton, but this time I think he did a very good job in putting together architecture and feelings.
Questo libro mi é piaciuto molto e con tutte le immagini ho imparato tante cose nuove di cui non sospettavo nemmeno l'esistenza. Devo dire che solitamente Alain De Botton non mi piace molto, lo trovo piuttosto banale e superficiale, ma stavolta ha fatto un buon lavoro nell'illustrare il legame tra sentimenti ed architettura.
Questo libro mi é piaciuto molto e con tutte le immagini ho imparato tante cose nuove di cui non sospettavo nemmeno l'esistenza. Devo dire che solitamente Alain De Botton non mi piace molto, lo trovo piuttosto banale e superficiale, ma stavolta ha fatto un buon lavoro nell'illustrare il legame tra sentimenti ed architettura.