“Beauty is the promise of Happiness”

“Beauty is the promise of Happiness”

-Alain de Botton-

Although this aphorism seems overly generalized beauty and happiness, but it helps me to relate and rationalize my pursuit of a world of beauty.  I have been unconsciously seeking beauty and perfection, almost as bad as the compulsive aesthetes mentioned by Alain de Botton in his book The Architecture of Happiness (de Botton, Alain. 2008, page 16).  Unlike the ascetics, I am concerned about my immediate surroundings, I feel delighted in beautiful, artistic or poetic atmosphere.  It needs not to be exuberance, in fact I distain extravagance.  I prefer simple but artful setting.  Maybe I see living life as a form of art experience; it is my belief in the role of architecture, that architecture should provide the platform with the right ambiance for artful living, a beautiful living environment for artistic living.

Architecture is inevitably both object and subject of art.  Therefore it is often in a morass of perplexing, which differentiates architecture from engineering.  Unlike engineering products where design are scientifically detect, architecture works are primarily a rendition of personal values.  Although modernist architects wanted to justify their architectures with machine aesthetic and regarded buildings as merely functional structures, but their underlying personal beliefs, ideals and values always surpass the engineering objectives.

Engineering aesthetic cannot be equated with architecture beauty.  Likewise, an engineering marvel may not necessary produce positive psychological impact to its occupants.   Thus, technical imperfection should not rule out a good architecture oeuvre.  It is not doing justice to architecture to measure architecture success with engineering or technological achievement.  I have the tendency to classify Nakagin Capsule Tower as an engineering marvel rather than an architectural work.  Could this be the reason its occupants failed to perceive some sort of sentimental values normally associated with an old building, and therefore urging for its demolition?  Correspondingly, what about the works of Santiago Calatrava, could this be the reason Calatrava has not been awarded Pritzker Architecture Prize, yet? 

It is very encouraging to notice that Pritzker Prize has been awarded to Wang Shu, a relatively young architect with very few published or constructed works.  Different from many star architects who emphasis on the visible appearance of their architectures, Wang Shu holds belief that architecture is a part of life to be experienced daily, not just as an object of spectacular (A. Srivathsan. 2012).