London-based Alain de Botton writes on what he terms the “philosophy of everyday life,” and his works happily span the breach between the self-help section and academia. So far, he has analyzed the relationship between sex, shopping, and the novel, what makes us fall in love, what the point of travel is, and why we worry about our place in society. He also examined the power of literature in the surprise bestseller How Proust Can Change Your Life.
For his latest book, The Architecture of Happiness, de Botton turns his mind to the built environment, examining our rationale for where we choose to live and discussing the emotions reflected by our choice of architectural styles. But the book may not be happy reading for many architects, as de Botton variously labels the profession as being overstaffed, overly egotistical, and unwilling to make the value judgments that he believes make for good buildings and coherent cityscapes.
Dwell’s London editor Iain Aitch met up with de Botton to find out where he thinks architecture is going wrong, what can be done to right it, and why he’s so down on Zaha Hadid.
What is the architecture of happiness?
The reason for the title of the book is this quote from [19th-century French writer] Stendhal where he says that “beauty is the promise of happiness.” I am attracted to
that quote because it connects what we find beautiful to what we find good in other
areas of life. It makes a bridge between aesthetics and politics, home life, relationships—all these other things that are kind of connected. It is not literally a book about how architecture can make you happy. It is about how buildings can be repositories for certain values and attitudes to life that we can find attractive and might associate with happiness.
What inspired you to cover this topic?
I have always been fascinated by architecture. I have always seen it as the leading art form, as it is the most dominant one. I was also inspired by how ugly most places are in the world. London, which I think is a very ugly city, got me thinking about why it is ugly
and what I mean by that word.
What did your research involve?
The book is an attempt to define what it is that makes a building attractive or ugly. So a lot of the research was looking at buildings and seeing what made some of them work and some of them not. I was always trying to ask what works and why. Most architects or professional architecture critics would never write such a book. They would never put themselves on the line in that way. You are never supposed to say, “I like that, but
I don’t like that.”
Did you come up with what amounted to a formula for architectural happiness?
I tried to, partly to stimulate people to attempt their own. So I give five principles of good architecture. This is what architects used to do in the Renaissance; they used to write books about how to make a building and lay down their five or six or ten laws of architecture. In a way, it is in that kind of spirit that the book is written, to rehabilitate this kind of concept.
So what are your five principles of good architecture?
I talk about the balance between order and complexity in the façade and arrangement of a building. We need things to be regular, but if they are too regular they get boring. And if they are too irregular they get chaotic. Then I look at the idea of contrasting forces within buildings. That can be between the masculine and the feminine, the old and the new.
I look at elegance, which I associate with handling weight or size gracefully. That is what makes cathedrals interesting, as you think, How is that held up? And I look at the idea of context and how buildings should reflect the context that they are in. Then I talk about the general principles that should guide designers in whom they are designing for and I look at Le Corbusier’s work as an example of someone who forgot some of the finer-grained things that we need in order to be satisfied with an environment. I make the point that at some level good architecture is psychological; you have to understand whom you are designing for.
What makes you most happy in architecture?
On the whole, the sort of buildings that generally appeal to me are the calm and ordered ones, as calm and order is what I am most lacking in life. I am generally not a fan of Daniel Libeskind or Zaha Hadid because my life feels kind of how their buildings look, and I don’t want more of that. So, I tend toward the more austere.
Is there any building that you think is responsible for unhappiness?
Well, Le Corbusier–inspired towers of the 20th century are a typical example of what can go wrong. There are other versions of that, such as the dull, dead suburbia that forgets about the need for quite dense environments where you can meet other people.
Should we always be trying to constantly move forward in architecture? Or do we need to keep an eye on the past?
I think there is, generally in society, a tedious overemphasis on the future and on things changing. And though they do change a lot in scientific areas, in artistic areas there is not that much change. I think the world of art has swallowed the idea of a future too forcefully. So if you read an interiors magazine, it will say what’s hot this month. A month is such a short time span. The acceleration of time is a bit worrying. Many things have worked well down the ages, and we should not reinvent the wheel. I am a mixture of a traditionalist and a futurist.
You talk about how the egos and aspirations of individual architects can lead to unsatisfactory streetscapes. Do you think they need to change the way that they work?
In a way I feel very sorry for architects, as there are too many of them. But also, their whole training is to make them very individual, creative people who can break all the rules. There can only be a few Zaha Hadids, yet the system is geared to producing only Zaha Hadids. I think architecture has bought into a 19th-century idea of romantic artist as rebel, as someone who stands against his or her society, who does everything different, who might be hated at first then gradually loved, like van Gogh. Though that may be true to some extent, it is not true to the extent that architecture schools suggest that it is. I think it leads many architects down the wrong path, toward unhappiness.
Are your friends concerned you might start analyzing their homes?
Well, if they read my books they might be, but no one has commented.
