The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton

The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton
Ojo Critico / Personal Rating: 4/5

Read this book at the end of January 2008 because 1) I was always fascinated with architecture and 2) I seem to have found a kindred soul in Mr. de Botton (but since he is a writer and I a reader, the resulting relationship so far has led me to read 4 of Mr. de Botton's books recently). And the money flows in one direction (his).

Mr. De Botton wants to convince us of the need to find ourselves in our surroundings, including the very spaces we live in. Harmony should be an ever present element in our lives, one that we should acquire if necessary. This does not mean that we should design or decorate our homes following the latest fashions or with the overt intention to increase our status among our friends and visitors. He warns that that could lead us to sadness and histerics: unfulfilled selves living in cages built with our own hands.

Instead he counsel us to seek our true selves though candide expression, art, and simple harmony. Hang paintings that really speak to us, use colors that gladden our hearts, design spaces to accomodate our needs and makes us feel at home. Appreciate and acquire beautiful things.

Mr. de Botton's prose is in itself quite an architectural feast. One of his most insightful comments reads as follows: "acquitance with grief turns out to be one of the more unusual prerequisites of architectural or artistic appreciation." I also loved the way he described the mental state of men preaching in the streets by labeling them as "people with unmatched socks".

Reading this book made me reconsider my long admiration for Le Corbusier and Howard Roark (main character in Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead). I still admire their uncompromising defense for their artistic vision, but I also see them now as architectural guerrillas unconcern with other people's views and tastes. At the end, they are as inquisidorial as the more conventional architects they denounced. As made clear in this book, had Le Corbusier gotten his way, he would had lay waste to a good chunk of Paris with his "machines for living", now widely derided as urban horrors.

In conclusion, Mr. de Botton shares with us another aspect of his own architecture of the Good Life, which I may say is quite wise and wonderful.