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The Architecture of Happiness | 
 enlarge | Author: Alain De Botton
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: £9.99
Buy New: £4.19
You Save: £5.80 (58%)
New (32) Used (9) from £4.19
Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 3655
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 280
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.7 x 0.8
ISBN: 0141015004
EAN: 9780141015002
ASIN: 0141015004
Publication Date: March 29, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New. Shipped from UK Mainland. Delivery is usually 2 - 3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 The author reflects on architecture January 13, 2008
Philippe Horak (Zug, Switzerland)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Considering the significance of architecture, the author remarks that beautiful houses falter as guarantors of happiness and can also be accused of failing to improve the characters of those who live in them and proceeds by explaining why this is so. Karl Friedrich Schinkel for example stated that to turn something useful, practical, and functional into something beautiful is the architect's duty. Architecture should thus be the decoration of construction as distinguished from mere building. The architects of the Modernist movement, like all their predecessors, wanted their houses to speak and express emotions. Indeed buildings speak. They speak of democracy or aristocracy, openness or arrogance, welcome or threat, sympathy for the future or a hankering for the past.
Interestingly enough what we search for in a work of architecture is not so far from what we search for in a friend because the objects we describe as beautiful art versions of the people we love. The buildings we admire are those which extol values we think are worthwhile: through their materials, shapes and colours they express qualities such as friendliness, kindness, subtlety, strength and intelligence. As Stendhal wrote, "Beauty is the promise of happiness."
We are vulnerable to what the spaces we inhabit are saying. In a drab hotel room our optimism and sense of purpose are liable to drain away. We look to our buildings to hold us, like a kind of psychological mould, to a helpful vision of ourselves. We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need a home in the physical sense: to compensate for vulnerability, we need a refuge.
We may feel joy at the architectural perfection we see before us and at the same time melancholy at an awareness of how seldom we are sufficiently blessed to encounter anything of its kind. And sadness is conducive to receptivity: our downhearted moments provide architecture and art with their best openings because it is at such times that our hunger for their ideal qualities is at its height.
Such thoughts and many other are contained in this study of architecture and make for a valuable and interesting read.
The Consolations of Architecture! June 16, 2007
Serghiou Const (Nicosia, Cyprus)
10 out of 21 found this review helpful
The title obviously alludes to a previous book by the charismatic author entitled 'The Consolations of Philosophy'.
But I aspire that this review is a little more than word play, resonance and allusion.
One is impressed with the literacy, sophistication, refinement and discriminating taste of the author. He moves with ease in time, Geography and discipline to collate the arguments in support of his points and pronounces virtually in every paragraph profound truths and thoughts with disarming simplicity.
The book is lavishly graced with elegant black and white photographs exquisitely illustrating the points made by the author in the text; in fact these photographs along with their accompanying footnotes comprise an excellent summary of the book.
But the book itself is difficult to summarize because there are simply so many original, beautiful, elegant, subtle and refined thoughts and ideas about buildings and Architecture. One can only aspire to give a flavour of the content of the book by providing fragments of information.
The author introduces the book in a philosophical mood.
In a walk on a brilliant summer day in a pastoral landscape the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke reflect on the trancience of beauty. In another point the author suggests that we are more appreciative of beauty when in sad mood while he reminds us of the cruel truth of the powerless of beautiful buildings to change the evil side of human nature.
The author discusses the evolution of the concept of beauty in Architecture. There was certainty in what comprises beauty in Architecture which with intermission lasted for a thousand years. It developed in classical Greece exemplified by the columnated temples with their friezes and pediments and harmonic proportions, evolved in Rome and revived in Rainessance.
Then tastes changed and the gothic and mixtures of styles were introduced in houses.
In the modern era beauty was ostensibly abandoned altogether and the new credo was function. Buildings and constructions should be functional not beautiful. But this was more of an illusion rather than fact. Modern Architecture was beautiful and gave a promise for the future.
We often describe a building as beautiful when it evokes aspects of happiness. As Stendahl aptly wrote 'Beauty is the promise of happiness'. But he wisely refrained from specifying any particular type of beauty but instead commented that there are as many styles of beauty as there are visions of happiness.
Buildings we call beautiful often contain in a concentrated form those qualities in which we are deficient. In this regard we feel sacred architecture exemplified in Gothic cathedrals is beautiful because it is uplifting our souls.
We like order in buildings but only when it is combined with complexity.
We like an adequately contextual building which we might define as one which embodies some of the most desirable values and the highest ambitions of its era and place-a building which serves as a repository for a workable ideal.
Finally our views on beauty and aesthetics are often moulded by culture. An extreme example is exemplified by the perceptions of beauty respectively in Western Europe and Japan in Architecture, artefacts and man made landscape.
Incredibly thought provoking November 30, 2006
S. Mason
9 out of 12 found this review helpful
I have only put this book down to write this review. Love it and love Alain de Botten. Everything he talks about provokes more philosophical questions which he is sure to discuss as you read on.
All architecture students should read June 15, 2006
Andrew (Bath, England, UK)
27 out of 30 found this review helpful
This book can be considered a well balanced guide to the major philosophical and theoretical debates which affect every architect-in-training in forming their own opinions and which have been debated over the past centuries. Everything from "what is archtitecture" downwards.
Contains just enough of each point of view to enable ideas to be formed, or to guide further research, without telling you what to think. Its a composition rather than a manifesto. Every ten pages or so there is a gem of a quote. And just as you start thinking, "but what does that mean for..." you turn the page and there it is, with quotes and references and everything you need to start making up your own mind.
If as an undergrad you're only likely to read one book on theory this year, and want to avoid becoming a specialist on [insert obscure german author your tutor wants an essay on], read this for the whole picture. Its really accessibly written too. And has pictures (good heavens!). And big margins.
 Quite Happy May 23, 2006
Mel (London)
23 out of 42 found this review helpful
Was a little disappointed that all of the photographs were in black and white. Considering the RRP cover price you would expect them to be in colour.
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