Currently reading
The Collected Stories
Middlemarch
Omensetter's Luck
Swann's Way
A Naked Singularity (Paper)
The Master and Margarita
Otherwise Known as the Human Condition: Selected Essays and Reviews
Infinite Jest
Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self
Maps and Legends
At first I thought the nouns should be reversed, ie, the Happiness of Architecture. But I began to realise that the book isn't so much about architecture as it is about people and how they express themselves with architecture, as they do with other art forms. He is using architecture to explain humans. He anthropomorphises archictecture. Architecture becomes a frozen emotion. He says that “In essence, what works of design and architecture talk to us about is the kind of life that would most appropriately unfold within and around them” Design is used to show what we want to be, or what we want our values to be. It springs from “…the need for idealised forms to stand as a defence against all that remains corrupt and unimaginative within us.” The human psyche naturally seeks balance and ‘beautiful’ architecture provides that, a psychological balance and therefore mental well being and happiness. “In literature, too,” he says, “we admire prose in which a small and astutely arranged set of words has been constructed to carry a large consignment of ideas.” De Botton’s book is just that: a small and astutely arranged set of words that carries a large consignment of ideas. Which brought me to happiness. 