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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 720.103
EAN: 9780307277244
ISBN: 0307277240
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: April 08, 2008
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: April 08, 2008
Studio: Vintage
Features:- ISBN13: 9780307277244
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
The Achitecture of Happiness is a dazzling and generously illustrated journey through the philosophy and psychology of architecture and the indelible connection between our identities and our locations.
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 is too often described as frivolous, even self-indulgent. Alain de Botton starts from the idea that where we are heavily influences who we can be, and argues that it is architecture's task to stand as an eloquent reminder of our full potential.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Spaces change who we are.
This ideas is expressed by de Bottam this way: "belief in the significance of architecture is premised on the notion that we are, for better or for worse, different people in different places -- and on the conviction that it is architecture's task to render vivid to us who we might ideally be."
So we should think carefully about where we spend our time. Intuitively we seem to seek in architecture what is missing in ourselves, or what will balance us, or make us whole.
de Botton quotes German philosopher Novalis who said, "In a work of art, chaos must shimmer through the veil of order". This seems to be an overriding theme of the book, the balance of order and disorder.
Orderly architecture combined with the chaos of daily life is humanizing and pleasing. However, if the architecture is itself disorderly then the addition of life's chaos creates that environment described by de Botton as producing "disorientation and frenzy".
And more generally, "we are drawn to call something beautiful whenever we detect that it contains in a concentrated form those qualities in which we personally, or our societies more generally, are deficient. We respect a style which can move us away from what we fear and towards what we crave: a style which carries the correct dosage of our missing virtues."
We also find beautiful that which is stronger than we are and admire structures of strength and substance.
These are interesting and provoking ideas and de Bottam's writing is for the most part clear and rich, often seemingly unusually enlightened.
How do we test these ideas? I suppose by going into different spaces and seeing how they affect us. I was inspired to look at buildings differently and more directly in the future, and increase the order in my own live.
Rating: -
Often when I am in a building, I get a "feeling" about how comfortable I am there, but I could never figure out what about the building made me feel that way. What I love about this book is not Botton's flawless understanding of architecture, which is certainly not the point of this book. What makes this book great are his theories about what gives us that "feeling" about a building, and I found them very insightful. I now find myself able to look deeper into what it is about a building that I find so beautiful or comforting. It is precisely Botton's lack of straight-up archtitectural knowledge that allows him to take a different view, and find the fault in a lot of architecture: not considering the emotion that a building conveys.
Rating:  -
This is Diet-Philosophy, entirely without fat and maybe without grey matter too. Anecdotes are narrated competently and there might be an underlying thesis. Something along the lines of "we are fascinated by the design of our immediate surroundings because we unconsciously believe that our immediate environment impacts us: our house will make us a better person, we think". Well, well, this is of course debatable, but not entirely false. Is it interesting and worth your time? If you're stuck in an airport, I'd say, probably.
Rating: -
This is a beautiful book---in terms of content, in terms of format, and even as a physical object. Vintage, at least in the paperback edition I purchased, really went the extra mile and printed the text and the numerous photographs on glossy, heavy bond paper.
Near the end of the book, de Botton states that "Bad architecture...is as much a failure of psychology as of design," though what most fascinates him is not bad architecture but good. Consequently, it is from a psychological perspective that de Botton ruminates upon what exactly appeals to us about the physical structures we inhabit and visit.
As it turns out, there are no fixed and steady rules -- though many have tried to establish them, and it is the exploration of others' ideas, and the concomitant psychology which motivated them, that allows de Botton to add his own contribution to a debate that easily shifts from aesthetics to psychology and from science to politics.
The risk with a book of this sort is that it lose focus, but de Botton maintains control from beginning to end, and is as comfortable discussing definitions of beauty as broad as F. Schiller's "beauty is the promise of happiness" as he is formal elements such as order and balance.
Architecture, if we are to understand its great variety and trends, serves to create equilibrium and to fulfill desires, compensating for what we lack: sometimes playful, sometimes simple and somber. De Botton is no relativist, however, and he insists that architecture may still be adjudicated based upon the extent to which it satisfies this need.
Eloquently stated, efficiently organized and wonderfully illustrated. I expected the book to be intelligent; I didn't know that at times it would also be moving.
Highly recommended.
Rating:  -
After reading the author's travel book, I knew that he would have some great insights to offer for this unexpected combination of subjects. I got this book for a friend who is into philosophy and architecture; they found it quite interesting and enjoyable.
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