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A review by licorice_piazza
The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton
5.0
Really enjoyed this one - it's a great primer with lots of photos. Botton suggests a psychology of taste; we find buildings to be beautiful because they communicate a language or set of ideas that mimic our own values and perspectives.
Some quotes I saved to come back to later:
"...we seek two things of our buildings. We want them to shelter us. And we want them to speak to us - to speak to us of whatever we find important and need to be reminded of."
"a home is merely any place that succeeds in making more consistently available to us the important truths which the wider world ignores, or which our distracted and irresolute selves have trouble holding onto."
"we should know to ask at once what people would have to lack in order to see an object as beautiful and can come to understand the tenor of their deprivation even if we cannot muster enthusiasm for their choice. A diversity of styles is a natural consequence of the manifold nature of our inner needs."
Some quotes I saved to come back to later:
"...we seek two things of our buildings. We want them to shelter us. And we want them to speak to us - to speak to us of whatever we find important and need to be reminded of."
"a home is merely any place that succeeds in making more consistently available to us the important truths which the wider world ignores, or which our distracted and irresolute selves have trouble holding onto."
"we should know to ask at once what people would have to lack in order to see an object as beautiful and can come to understand the tenor of their deprivation even if we cannot muster enthusiasm for their choice. A diversity of styles is a natural consequence of the manifold nature of our inner needs."