Alain de Botton's Architecture of Happiness is a humanist's guide to understanding built environments. Finding room to appreciate both classical and contemporary architecture, de Botton resolves the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns by suggesting that every architecture strives to provide the conditions for happiness. "What works of design and architecture talk to us about is the kind of life that would most appropriately unfold within and around them. They tell us of certain moods that they seek to encourage and sustain in their inhabitants." (72)

Although the book is dedicated to the pursuit of happiness, its best moments are shot through with midlife melancholy. De Botton reflects on the ache inspired by an eighteenth-century ornament: "The ceiling is a repository of the qualities the man would like to have more of in himself: it manages to be both playful and serious, subtle and clear, formal and unpretentious ... it has a profound unsentimental sweetness, like that of a smile breaking across a child's face" (148-9).

The book itself is founded on the double premise that our surroundings affect our moods and modes of living, yet "will only ever constitute a small, and imperfect protest against the state of things" (25). De Botton, that is, believes deeply, very deeply, that architecture matters, but he does not suffer from the self-importance of the professional architect. Phew.

What excites me most about de Botton's work, however, is his ability to weave design, literature, and philosophy into a mode of discourse that speaks with an eye to illumination, not obscurity. The writing is too beautiful to be reduced to a set of "take-aways," the emerging tin standard for public speech, yet de Botton uses page breaks and illustrations to escape the mesmerizing movement of his own syntax. Could this be ... the typography of happiness?

The author opens with a marvelous question, "If architecture is important, then how can we ever be unhappy in a home with good architecture." It is a truly breathtaking question to ask. Unfortunately, I'm still waiting for the answer.

Happily, the author does offer great compensations for his failure to resolve his key question. He provides a well-rounded and insightful look at how we interact psychologically with architecture. I didn't agree with every observation he made, but I found all of them interesting, provocative, and worthy of my time. It is a book that I will read again and which has more to teach me. Especially when I'm not looking for an answer that isn't there.

I bought this book for my son who just declared his major in college to be architecture. He has been reading it for a few days and when I asked him if he liked it he said it was pretty good and that is good enough for me.

I have given copies to a Zen priest and an award winning architect thinking they would both be exhilerated if not inspired. The Architecture of Happiness lends insights and provocation enough to raise new questions, new slants on how one practices...whatever field you are in.