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The Architecture of Happiness

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The Architecture of Happiness

By: Alain de Botton
Narrated by: Alain de Botton
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About this listen

 In his extraordinary new book, Alain de Botton explores the importance of buildings in our lives, pondering our attachment to our homes and considering such questions as: Why do people disagree about taste? Can beautiful surroundings make us good? Not to mention: What makes a window frame attractive?

Rooted in the idea that architecture has the power to influence how we feel and that we are different people in different buildings, he suggests how we might learn to build better, more attractive dwellings, in which we could stand a higher chance of happiness.

©2006 Alain de Botton (P)2006 Penguin Audio Aesthetics Architecture House & Home Interior Design & Decoration Philosophy Society Happiness

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All stars
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I expected more profound conclusions starting this book, than it eventually gives. The book fails to go in depth too much.

Promising start, shallow end

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Briefly goes into theme of history culture beauty and it's relation to architecture.
The book is about how different architecture makes different people happy.
very worthwhile read🙂

book is about architecture and history

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Button's writing here is crippled by his incessant attempts to sound as though he's contributing a tome of great worth to architectural academia. Where in actual fact his prose are at their best when he uses more pedestrian vocabulary, and attempts to evoke the universal in mundanity. The book lacks substance and structure, more of an introduction to thinking about architecture, for those who would like to impress their friends at dinner parties by spouting a few choice terms and broad generalisations which Botton himself is kind enough to elucidate here. Quite disappointing. Wouldn't bother if I were you.

Quite Disappointing

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I love the way the author writes, I can feel his words and see the images of the things he writes about. It’s very a sensible and rich writing. I will probably listen to it a few more times, as it feels as though he entered my subconscious, organized by thoughts and translated them into words in a book, brilliant. I’d name it: The search of happiness through the beauty of architecture.

Brilliant.

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Beautifully narrated but I had hoped for more references and case studies. It all felt too vague albeit poetic.

A bit washy.

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