Book Review: The Architecture of Happiness

"An ugly room can coagulate any loose suspicions as to the incompleteness of life, while a sun-lit one set with honey-coloured limestone tiles can lend support to whatever is most hopeful within us"

I use the phrase 'review' very loosely in the title of this post, as I do not have many coherent critical opinions when it comes to Alain de Botton's The Architecture of Happiness. What I do have is a lot of praise to give to a non fiction book that can move the reader the way this book moved me. 

Full disclosure - I bought this book for the absolute silliest of reasons; it features in the film 500 Days of Summer as a gift that aspiring architect Tom gives to Summer when reunited with her at her rooftop party. The book looked pretty, was vaguely interesting, and wasn't that expensive on Amazon. So I bought it. 

By the fourth page my face was about two inches away from the paper as I got pulled into an account of an average family homes' everyday movements and thoughts. I honestly got so excited I started underlining sentences with a pencil, until realising that so much of it needed underlining it would be easier to just bookmark the entire chapter. The house is so imaginatively personified that even if your interest in architecture is minimal, this introduction is undeniably captivating.

De Botton discusses how and why we often look to architecture to solve problems in our lives, and to what extent it does and doesn't do this. He writes with such clarity that all the unexplainable feelings you've ever had when hating or admiring buildings are laid clear. He takes us through clearly arranged sub topics such as why architectural ideals change, and what kind of values architecture can represent, whilst still managing to keep the whole thing cohesive as one piece of writing. The short numbered sections that make up each chapter mean you can dip in and out of this book if you'd like to, and I recommend doing this while sitting in front of as many of your favourite buildings or views as possible. My favourite places I've read this book are: on top of Primrose Hill in the sun, in front of St Paul's Cathedral, and in a cafe on a pretty side street in Kensington. However, the best place to read the first chapter is with a cup of tea in your own home upon returning from a long absence. 

So if you have an interest in architecture, writing and psychology, this book makes for an beautifully written and factually enlightening read.

"Although this house may lack solutions to a great many of its occupants' ills, its rooms nevertheless give evidence of a happiness to which architecture has made its distinctive contribution"


The cheapest edition of this book is available from third party sellers at Amazon here, but my more sparkly copy is this one.

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