Architecture of Happiness: Why Ideals

¶ … Architecture of Happiness: Why Ideals Change

Alain de Botton asks the very apt question in his text, the Architecture of Happiness, why it is that society constantly has shifting values about what it finds beautiful, positing this question, very simply: "Why do we change our minds about what we find beautiful?" (154) This is an important question as De Botton demonstrates that what we consider to be aesthetically pleasing swings from polarities which are difficult to predict, and which are subject to the influences of time: "Precedent forces us to suppose that later generations will one day walk around our houses with the same attitude of horror and amusement with which we now consider many of the possessions of the dead. They will marvel at our wallpaper and our sofas and laugh at aesthetic crimes to which we are impervious. This awareness can lend to our affections a fragile, nervous quality" (154). This is entirely accurate, and part of the reason that De Botton explains that architects truly scrutinize and agonize over their designs, precisely so they have the assurance that their designs will stand the test of time. When something has withstood the test of time, it almost always seems in good taste or in fashion and is never an eyesore. For example, some say that Georgian architecture is a classic type which has done precisely this (Spencer-Churchill, 40); others offer London's controversial Centre Point development as a modern example of something that has also succeeded in this regard (Sebestye & Pollington, 50).

With architecture, the stakes of design are so much higher than with fashion or interiors. Architects create buildings that are larger than life, that can't be shoved to the back of a closet like a hideous dress and which can't be painted over like an ugly color scheme. Architecture can be overwhelming and often exudes a palpable sense of permanence. it's no wonder, as De Botton eloquently points out, that architects really scramble to create pieces that will be considered timeless and not become eyesores or laughingstocks to later generations (154).

De Botton then plunges into an analysis of what design generally means to society without explaining why this necessary, instinctual transition has been made. De Botton is apt indeed, knowing that before one can understand why tastes change, one needs to understand how society gravitates to particular tastes and styles as a reflection of their time. De Botton refers to the work of Worringer who developed a theory about society and art, stating essentially: "The determinant lay, he believed, in those values which the society in question was lacking, for it would love in art whatever it did not possess in sufficient supply within itself. Abstract art, infused as it was with harmony, stillness and rhythm, would appeal chiefly to societies yearning for calm -- societies in which law and order were fraying, ideologies were shifting, and a sense of moral danger was compounded by moral and spiritual confusion" (155). This theory makes perfect logical sense and can clearly explain human nature, both individual and collective. In fact, this theory can be clearly seen in romantic relationships, as human beings often seek out a partner who possesses all the qualities that one lacks in oneself, drumming up the theory that opposites attract. Buildings actually don't begin with a blueprint; rather they start with an expectation (Craven); often tangled up in that expectation is a marrying of opposites.

A contemporary aspect of this as it occurs and has for many decades in pop culture is via the work of Tim Burton. While some might argue that Burton is a director first and a not a designer, one needs to remember that he first started as an animator at Disney and that all of his films are imbued with the same, dark, subversive, gothic style that suggests Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Corman and comic books (Winter & Hughes, 70). Tim Burton grew up in the squeaky clean suburbs of Burbank, CA, a place where the lawns were manicured and the houses were pastel and where this starkness and lack of originality fostered his dark creative genius: "Suburban banality rubs against the gothic exotic in Beetle Juice (1988) Edward Scissorhands (1990) Ed Wood (1994) and Big Fish (2003). The typical Burton hero is a misunderstood misfit who strays between these two worlds: child-man Pee-Wee Herman; Edward Scissorhands, a teenager cut off from the world by his destructive/creative blade-fingers; neurotic crime fighter Batman…" (Winter & Hughes, 70). One could argue that without the banality and conformity of Burton's surrounding environment and growing up in the pristine suburbs of Burbank coupled with deafening lack of creativity and imagination were precisely the type of scarcity that compelled and fostered Burton's unique style. The macabre and ghoulish appealed to a mind that was surrounded by the opposite and yearned for more.

This is a dynamic that De Botton illuminates in his theory: "But in societies that had achieved high standards of internal and external order, so that life therein had come to seem predictable and overly secure, an opposing hunger would emerge: citizens would long to escape from the suffocating grasp of routine and predictability -- and would turn to realistic art to quench their psychic thirst and reacquaint themselves with an elusive intensity of feeling" (155). The phenomenon describes the situation in which Burton's distinct creative style emerged and the propensity that draws audiences in to watching his often gloomy and ghoulish films. For example, one can argue that it's the attraction of opposites that makes people want to leave their safe, secure, clean and predictable middle class homes to watch a film about a corpse bride whose eyeball pops out from time to time and whose body is infested by a maggot, as Burton illustrated in the film Corpse Bride and dozens others. Suburbia estranged Burton (Boyars); one wonders if Burton's genius would've emerged in just the same way without that feeling he had growing up.

A more traditional example of this phenomenon is the emergence of Art Deco architecture and design style in history. Famed American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said that this style was shaped by and a reaction to, "all the nervous energy stored up and expended in the War" (Bennett, 2011). One can argue that in the 1920s and 1930s this style of architecture was so appealing to American culture because it signaled a reprieve from the austerity imposed by World War One. The rationing of food and supplies was over; men were back in the homestead. A great sense of safety and security abounded throughout human day-to-day life, not to mention a triumph for American troops. The Art Deco style of architecture was a strong reaction to the lack, the sheer lack that Americans had been sidled with for nearly half a decade. Art Deco was at once elegant, graceful and powerfully modern, a deft conglomeration of a range of design styles, symbolizing a wealth and abundance in a powerfully modern manner. Others see art deco as an explosion out of austerity (sf.edu, 2012). "The bold and linear symmetry -- a departure from Art Nouveau -- embraced influences from a large number of movements and styles of the early 20th century including Constructivism Cubism, Futurism, Modernism, and Neoclassical design. It drew inspiration from Aztec and Egyptian designs, which told stories and used stylized icons that had symbolic meaning" (Passikoff, 5).

Thus, in certain respects, the Art Deco movement was like a platinum calla lily growing out of a brick: art deco was borne out of an environment and atmosphere of absence and scarcity, countering that immediate history and background with a dazzling profusion: gold sunbursts shooting to the sky with geometric rays, a shunning of organic lines and pastels with an embrace instead of geometric lines and dense precision, sharp angles, and strong stylistic choices not often found in nature. "Viewed in this light, a given stylistic choice will tell us as much about what its advocates lack as about what they like. We can understand a seventeenth century elite's taste for gilded walls by simultaneously remembering the context in which this form of decoration developed its appeal: one where violence and disease were constant threats, even for the wealthy" (De Botton, 159). Indeed, this quote aptly demonstrates how the things that one gravitates towards in a stylistic manner can be extremely illuminating about the climate of a collective of people, a period in history, and their corresponding needs and fears.

This dynamic is present in the world of fashion design as well and in the preferred form of the female body. Just as some decades have preferred a shapelier, curvier and plumper female form, other decades have clearly preferred one that is bonier and skinnier. Just as there was a time in the 1800s to appear plump, pear-shaped and fertile, there was a time in the 1920s for women to cultivate a "washboard profile" and boyish figure (Vongkhamchanh). The curvy and plump form that prevailed in the fifties one can argue was a sign of the complacency of the period. The men had returned from the war, Americans were buying homes and putting all their energies in to building a nest for the family filled with all sorts of creature comforts. The female form reflected these comforts: it was round and healthy. On the other hand, the 1960s and 1970s signaled the rampant winds of change; while some people attribute it primarily to the debut of Twiggy, the skinny supermodel of the era other reasons are relevant to examine as well: "popular during the 1960's because of the increasingly popularity of self-expression and women's rights movements during this time that allowed women to shed clothes and bare more body. Being thin allowed them to comfortably wear clothes like the mini-skirt, which maybe at that time stood for some sort of freedom and self-expression. Being thin and shedding weight may have given some women the ability to feel better about themselves. Another reason could have been the onset of the sexual revolution. This thin look has remained an attraction or desire for many women even today" (Cox, 2006). Regardless of what the exact reasons were, one can argue that the changing aesthetic for women revolved around the changing values of society, which then impacted what it considered beautiful or feminine in terms of the female shape.

This shifting viewpoint in turn impacted fashion and we continue to see the influences of it today. For example, the female silhouette of the fifties, one could argue was the more maternal shape and more strongly signified the woman's permanent position in the homestead as mother and caregiver, symbolized by curvy hips and ample breasts; this was a figure that was ready to bear children and nurture them to health and wellness. As time passed and women began to explore their role outside of the home, these values shifted, and thus the corresponding and preferred female shape shifted with them. As women began to explore a life in terms of a career, one could argue that the need for curves diminished and a flatter, more cylindrical and masculine form prevailed.

De Botton's greatest accomplishment is the act of presenting taste as a reaction to one's circumstances, to what one lacks or as one might say, a dissatisfaction with the way things are or with one's immediate surroundings. Creating a Spartan whitewashed loft with a minimalistic design style is both a reaction to the anarchical society one lives in and visual communication to all who enters about one's buried or immediate dissatisfaction with the society of which one is a part of, as a result of one's need for order, safety and consideration. Thus, De Botton is correct in stating that one's design proclivities are a result of lack, but they're also a result of dissatisfaction, one can argue, and an unfulfilled desire. Unfulfilled desires can create a strong tension within one's space, creating a sense of push and pull (Ungson & Wong, 328).

For example, one of the most iconic museums in the city of New York is the Guggenheim museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. This museum has a sweeping, pure white cylindrical shape and is planted firmly on the 5th avenue of New York's Upper East Side. As critic Paul Goldberger recalls about the museum, originally, "there really were only two common models for museum design -- the beaux-arts palace and the International Style pavilion -- and Wright managed, in one fell swoop, to explode them both.' Wright's building, continues Goldberger, 'made it socially and culturally acceptable for an architect to design a highly expressive, intensely personal museum. In this sense almost every museum of our time is a child of the Guggenheim'" (Guggenheim.org, 2012). The Guggenheim's understated yet exhilarating, minimalist, yet grand design made it a pioneer not only in the world of architecture, but in the very geographical location where it stood. it's been dubbed a "fantastic dream ship" and a "prehistoric beast" (Stoller & Goldberg, 4). The Upper East Side of Manhattan is said to have the highest per capita income of any urban area in the nation (citi-habitats). While a great chunk of the neighborhood's housing was built in the 1950s to the 1970s, another large portion of it was built in the late 1800s: this is part of the reason why Goldberger recalls that it was originally expected that the museum would have a beaux-arts style, as a great deal of the really famed architecture of the area bears that exact style. In fact, one of the other notable and world-famous museums of the area, the Metropolitan museum of art is fashioned in this way, showcasing this exact style, so that it fits in perfectly with the area.

It would've been reasonable to assume that in the building of the Guggenheim, it was expected that it would take on this appearance as well, so that the new museum would fit in with the look and tone of the neighborhood, complimenting the general sense of grandeur. "Development began in the area in the late 1860s when several rows of brownstones were constructed in the Italianate style on 78th, 80th and 81st Streets. By the end of the 1890s, several large elegant mansions had been built on Fifth Avenue, and by the turn of the century, many large fashionable mansions, built primarily in the Beaux-Arts and neo-Renaissance styles, had replaced entire rows of brownstones. The quality of architecture in this district is extraordinary" (citi-habitats.com). Thus, it's important to realize that in this case there was no lack of elegance or sophistication nor was there a lack of beauty. Rather, from an architectural standpoint, there was a lack of daring, risk and adventure, not to mention a sheer lack of modernism.