Architecture of Happiness: Why Aesthetic Ideals Change Over Time

Introduction: Why Aesthetic Ideals Shift

Alain de Botton poses a very apt question in The Architecture of Happiness: why does society constantly hold shifting values about what it finds beautiful? He frames it 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 aesthetically pleasing swings between polarities that are difficult to predict and subject to the influence 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 observation is entirely accurate, and it partly explains why architects truly scrutinize and agonize over their designs — precisely to ensure their work will stand the test of time. When something has withstood that test, it almost always seems in good taste or in fashion and never becomes an eyesore. Some argue, for example, that Georgian architecture is a classic style that 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 (Sebestyen & Pollington, 50).

With architecture, the stakes of design are far higher than with fashion or interiors. Architects create buildings that are larger than life — structures that cannot be shoved to the back of a closet like a hideous dress and cannot be painted over like an ugly color scheme. Architecture can be overwhelming and often exudes a palpable sense of permanence. It is no wonder, as de Botton eloquently points out, that architects scramble to create pieces that will be considered timeless rather than eyesores or laughingstocks to later generations (154).

Worringer's Theory and the Attraction of Opposites

De Botton then moves into an analysis of what design generally means to society. Before one can understand why tastes change, one must first understand how society gravitates toward particular tastes and styles as a reflection of its era. 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 clearly illuminates human nature, both individual and collective. Indeed, the same dynamic can be seen in romantic relationships, where human beings often seek out partners who possess the qualities they feel they themselves lack — lending credence to the idea that opposites attract. Buildings, too, do not begin with a blueprint; rather, they start with an expectation (Craven) — one often tangled up in a marrying of opposites.

Tim Burton and the Gothic Aesthetic as Cultural Reaction

A vivid contemporary illustration of this dynamic, one that has played out across several decades of popular culture, is the work of Tim Burton. While some might classify Burton primarily as a director rather than a designer, it is worth remembering that he began his career as an animator at Disney, and that all of his films are imbued with the same dark, subversive, gothic style that evokes Edgar Allan Poe, Roger Corman, and comic books (Winter & Hughes, 70). Burton grew up in the pristine suburbs of Burbank, California — a place where lawns were manicured, houses were painted in pastels, and a stifling uniformity prevailed. It was precisely this environment that fostered his dark creative genius: "Suburban banality rubs against the gothic exotic in Beetlejuice (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 surroundings — the pristine suburbs of Burbank coupled with a deafening lack of creativity and imagination — he would not have been compelled to develop such a unique aesthetic. The macabre and ghoulish appealed to a mind surrounded by the opposite, a mind that yearned for something more.

This is precisely the dynamic 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). This phenomenon explains the environment from which Burton's creative style emerged, as well as the attraction that draws audiences to his often gloomy and ghoulish films. It is the attraction of opposites, for example, that leads people to leave their safe, secure, and predictable middle-class homes to watch a film about a corpse bride whose eyeball pops out and whose body is infested by a maggot — as Burton depicted in Corpse Bride and dozens of other films. Suburbia estranged Burton (Boyars); one wonders whether his genius would have emerged in the same way without that formative alienation.

Art Deco: Design Born from Scarcity

A more traditional illustration of this phenomenon is the emergence of Art Deco architecture and design in the early twentieth century. 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 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 had returned home. A great sense of safety and security pervaded daily life, accompanied by a feeling of triumph. The Art Deco style was a strong reaction to the sheer deprivation that Americans had endured for nearly half a decade.

Art Deco was at once elegant, graceful, and powerfully modern — a sophisticated conglomeration of design influences that symbolized wealth and abundance. Others have interpreted it 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).

In certain respects, the Art Deco movement was like a platinum calla lily growing out of a brick: born from an atmosphere of absence and scarcity, it countered that history with a dazzling profusion — gold sunbursts shooting skyward with geometric rays, a rejection of organic lines and pastels in favor of geometric precision, sharp angles, and bold stylistic choices rarely found in nature. As de Botton observes: "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" (159). This quote aptly demonstrates how stylistic choices can be extraordinarily revealing about the climate, needs, and fears of a collective people at a particular moment in history.

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